Speed can be a powerful weapon in a batting lineup. It also can bail out a baserunner when a mistake is made.

As the top event of the annual club softball circuit, the Premier Girls Fastpitch National Championships doubles as a showcase for future college stars.

Larissa Preuitt doesn’t recall how old she was when she attended her first Alabama Crimson Tide softball game. But the Hartselle, Alabama native and outfielder for Birmingham Thunderbolts 18U does remember sitting in the outfield seats at Rhoads Stadium with a group of softball friends and seeing four-time All-American Haylie McCleney hit a home run.

As much as Ava Brown loves to win, she hates losing even more.

All year, college softball teams have prepared for the first week of June. Now, it’s finally arrived.

Basketball has its madness in March. But college softball can lay claim to some mayhem of its own that begins in mid-May and runs into June.

USA Softball announced today the remaining Top 10 Finalists vying for the 2022 USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year. Currently in its 20th season, the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award is considered the most prestigious individual honor in Division I college softball and recognizes outstanding athletic achievement by Division I female softball players across the country.

Programs never want to get left behind early in the college softball season, and UCLA and Tennessee are two teams where the idea especially applies.

The names of the perennial Women’s College World Series teams embarking on California’s Coachella Valley for the 2022 Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic are some of the most well-known programs in softball: UCLA, Arizona, Tennessee, Missouri, and reigning national champion Oklahoma.

After her freshman season ended in 2019, Ashley Rogers had already cemented herself as one of the top young pitchers in college softball. An NFCA All-Southeast Region and All-SEC First Team selection, Rogers posted 21 victories, third-best in the conference and 41st in the nation. Her 1.94 ERA was best on the team and put her seventh in the SEC.

As much as the strain of winter is impacting areas across the country, the college softball scene should heat things up this February.

VTU was the only undefeated team last weekend at the highly competitive Northern Lights/Southern Nights Invitational in Leesburg, Florida. Returning All-American Keely Rochard was named Outstanding Player, as she picked up three wins and a save in the circle, throwing complete game wins over three top-25 teams in Northwestern, Missouri, and Kentucky. Kelsey Bennett was a hitting machine at the plate for the Hokies, with an OPS of 1.457 for the five games.

You wouldn’t be blamed for finding the Mary Nutter Collegiate Classic a bit overwhelming.

When NCAA sanctions against the Missouri softball program were upheld in 2020 following an academic cheating scandal, head coach Larissa Anderson became nervous. The program would not only be banned from both SEC and NCAA postseason action, but players would be allowed to transfer without having to sit out a year.

In just a few short weeks, the world's largest softball event will be in full swing, THE Spring Games. Known as the hotspot for early season collegiate competition, THE Spring Games is ready to embark on its biggest year yet.