(Photo from Ole Miss Athletics)
- Trachsel’s Ole Miss journey could have been a short one, but Athletics Director Keith Carter stood by the program and its coach.
The joy in the journey is what’s left to lean on when the end of the road is blocked.
Ole Miss softball, one of just eight teams in the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, could see the end, the prize, the national championship.
Late Friday night they became one of the first teams out, one of the seven who could see, smell and almost feel the finish line.
For some of those seven the journey won’t be enough. It’s commonplace. Been there, done that, try again next year.
Ole Miss softball is different.
Any SEC softball team with a pulse makes the NCAA Tournament as the Rebels had done in each of Jamie Trachsel’s previous four seasons as coach.
This year when they reached postseason and beat Arizona twice to advance from the Tuscon Regional they reached new ground under Trachsel, who led Minnesota, her alma mater, to the College World Series in 2019.
Ole Miss softball had twice reached the super regionals, but that was long before current squad members were around. When they knocked off No. 4 Arkansas 9-7 in the first game in Fayetteville it was the program’s first win of a super regional game. The series went to a third game, and Ole Miss won it 7-4.
This was a team picked next-to-last by SEC coaches in February, a team that, yes, reached the NCAAs last year but was just 31-27 overall, 7-17 in the league.
Title IX investigation
If it was hard to envision Ole Miss softball in an OKC dugout this season it was even harder in the fall of 2021, after Trachsel’s first season, when the team was the subject of an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by an assistant coach and players. Ultimately, the school’s Title IX office found the allegations to be “unsubstantiated.”
Trachsel was accused of using the lure of additional scholarship money to quiet involved players.
All of this came with the abrupt resignation of former coach Mike Smith who led the program to super regionals in 2017 and 2019 still a fresh memory.
Trachsel’s Ole Miss journey could have been a short one, but Athletics Director Keith Carter stood by the program and its coach.
Choosing to return
A year ago the journey was mediocre at best. In this transfer portal era, players have options. Many take off, but Rebels catcher Lexie Brady was one of 10 key players who returned.
“I’m proud of my commitment but of the commitment of the coaches to us (too). They continued to prove over and over again why we should have stayed. It pays off. The story speaks for itself,” Brady said late Friday.
It was a story of getting hot at the right time.
The Rebels’ confidence in one another, their chemistry with Trachsel and her staff, flashed in the regular season with a series when against then-No. 10 Arkansas early.
Along the way there were single wins against No. 1 Tennessee, against top-10 teams South Carolina and Florida, then again over Florida in the SEC Tournament, but never another series win.
The end result was an 11-13 SEC record that left them 11th in the league, just three spots up from where SEC coaches had them pegged.
But the journey had them prepared them, the Florida win in the conference tournament further validated them, and in Fayetteville it clicked.
It almost clicked in OKC, but the end came after a 1-0 loss to Texas Tech and a 6-5 extra-inning loss to Oregon.
“There was a lot of confidence in our dugout. Through the whole game it felt that we could win at any point,” Brady said.
“I’m super proud of them, proud of the season, it was special, the run that we had, the growth that we made throughout the entire year. I’m proud that I got to coach this group, proud of the journey. Proud of the legacy they left behind, not just on the field, but who they are and the culture that we had,” Trachsel said.
It would have been difficult to reach the heights the Rebels did this season with the distractions, divisions and drama that go along with an internal investigation. If there were questions of culture then, there did not appear to be this season.
Certainly, Brady found what she was looking for in a college athletics experience.
Ole Miss was not a national seed or regional host.
Though the Rebels didn’t reach the pot of gold they could see it from where they finished.
The stage was the biggest, the environment different for this program.
Souvenir hunting
It was clear Ole Miss players hadn’t been there, and they savored every minute of it, right down to taking with them their cardboard name plates when they walked off the risers and left the lights of the last postgame interview session.
“Yeah, you can take those with you,” the moderator said, though the girls didn’t ask.
Souvenirs, whatever form, come where you find them.
For Trachsel, the best souvenir will be the mental images that won’t be forgotten.
“We embodied every part of what it means to be a team and continued to get better throughout the entire season and played our best when it mattered the most. Eleven seniors, them and our whole team left a legacy at Ole Miss that will be remembered and celebrated for many years to come.”
Parrish Alford
