By Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Marissa Puckett might have orchestrated one of the biggest turnarounds in area softball this spring as she directed Radford to a 12-8 record, a reverse from the 2017 mark of 5-15.
As a team, Radford hit .430 this season with an on-base percentage of .516 and showed steady improvement across the board.
Puckett shared this spring’s softball all-county/all-city coach of the year honors with Auburn’s David Hurd, who led his team to another state playoff tournament. Hurd was named both the Mt. Empire District and Region C coach of the year.
Auburn’s 2018 softball team, who fell in the Class 1 title game, placed a total of four players on this year’s all-county/all-city team. They were: Machenzie Lawrence, Abby Wilson, Skylar DeHart and Emily Scaggs.
Wilson, a Radford University commit, is the all-county/all-city player of the year to go along with her first-team all-state honors and being named the Region C player of the year. She batted .589 with eight home runs and 39 RBIs. She also swiped 17 bases.
Lawrence finished the season with .430 batting average, 30 Runs Batted In (RBI) and six homers. She also had 14 stolen bases.
Scaggs batted .511 this season with 32 RBIs, three home runs and 12 stolen bases.
DeHart, the region C pitcher of the year, finished the year with a 23-1 record with her lone loss coming in the state championship game against Rappahannock.
Radford’s Bailee Cox, Tionha Eaves, Charli Dietz and Kailey Reed were also named to the team. Freshman Reed took a major role this season becoming the team’s work horse in the pitching circle with seven complete games including a shutout. She finished 9-4 on the season with 53 strikeouts.
Cox led the team in runs scored with 29, second in hitting and first in on-base percentage. She also stole 19 bases and had two homeruns and 11 RBI’s.
Eaves recorded a homerun and 27 RBIs to lead the team and batted .448. Dietz had 21 RBIs and slugged a team high .491 this past season.
The rest of the team includes:
Erica Shrewsbury, Eastern Montgomery
Cindy Lane, Eastern Montgomery
Robin Mann, Blacksburg
Katin Currin, Blacksburg
Courtney Wright, Christiansburg
Kyndall Stanley, Christiansburg
