Dixie State University’s softball team showed it’s ready to play for the national championship again this year.
The national runner-ups for the 2015 National Championship took on Snow College twice in a doubleheader scrimmage on Saturday.
Junior pitcher Brooklyn Beardshear, an elementary education major from Tucson, Arizona, started on the mound for the Red Storm while senior catcher Autumn Woodfall, a biology major from Kaysville, started behind the plate.
“[Beardshear] threw really well, obviously, [because] no runners scored, and she threw a lot of strikes,” Woodfall said. “We had really good communication within the group, and we worked well and rotated well as a team.”
DSU is replacing seven starters from the best softball team in school history but are still expecting to do big things.
“We have a lot of shoes to fill, but we need to look at our team as a different team not a team that needs to replace an old one,” Woodfall said. “Our expectation is to just play with the same intensity as last year.”
Beardshear said the team likes to play “Love is Gone” by David Guetta at the bottom of the fourth inning right before the players bat and do a cheer and dance to it.
“We definitely have a lot of confidence working our way back to nationals again,” Beardshear said. “We know we can get back to where we were last year. We’re working hard to get there but having fun at the same time.”
DSU went on to win both games. The first game ended 9-0, followed by the Snow Badgers loosing 9-4.
“It being fall ball, we want to get a lot of the new girls playing time,” Woodfall said. “I think our team chemistry is better than it’s been in the past four years I’ve been here. The girls are very well disciplined, work hard at practice, [and] work hard in the classroom. We have a lot of good new players.”
In six seasons, head coach Randy Simpkins has never lost more than 14 games in a regular season. His overall record at DSU is 250-71.
