December 19, 2023

FSU softball: Previewing Florida State Seminoles ACC schedule, part 2 -- North Carolina, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Pitt, Syracuse, Virginia

36 minutes

The Florida State Seminoles softball team are just over 50 days from beginning their quest to return to Oklahoma City after last year’s ACC Championship and WCWS finalist season.

Brian Pellerin and Gwyn Rhodes are previewing each ACC team as part of their offseason podcast series. This time, they’re looking at the second half of the conference’s offseason changes ahead of the 2024 season.

This episode starts with Boston College, they talk about where the Eagles finished last season and the new additions added. Last time, they covered Boston College through NC State.

This time, they’re covering North Carolina through Virginia Tech.

Starting with the Tar Heels and their new coach. Megan Smith Lyon left Marshall to join her alma mater in Chapel Hill. She had a program-record 45 wins a year ago.

She had four key losses to replace in her first offseason in charge.

Two are out of eligibility in All-ACC First Team infielder Abby Settlemyre and outfielder Bri Stubbs, who led the team in runs. The other two are a pair of All-ACC Second Team players to the transfer market in shortstop Alex Brown, who led the team in hits, batting average and OBP, to Clemson and pitcher Lilli Backes, who posted a 2.79 ERA in 180.2 innings, to Georgia.

The Backes transfer is a bit of a pseudo-trade as the Tar Heels are getting a UGA transfer pitcher in to replace Backes in Britton Rogers, who posted a 4.75 ERA in 125.1 innings a year ago, Their new head coach also brought over two 2023 Sun Belt first-teamers from Marshall in Autumn Owen — the winner of the Sun Belt triple crown last season — and Alex Coleman — the conference leader in hits.

Next is Notre Dame, who lost Joley Mitchell to Texas in the transfer portal as well as Leea Hanks, Lexi Orozco and Payton Tidd. But it comes with two big additions — Princeton’s Alexis Laudenslager and freshman Christina Willemssen.

Laudenslager is a two-time Ivy League pitcher of the year while Willemssen was a member of the USA Softball 18U team.

Pitt’s offseason came with some big changes, starting with the coaching staff. Jenny Allard, the head coach at Harvard joins the Panthers after 28 seasons as the Ivy League’s longest tenured and winningest coach. With a 342-130-1 career record, she’s also a member of the NFCA Hall of Fame.

The new staff also brings big changes to the roster. There were two transfers out — Dani Drogemueller to Duke and Bailey Drapola to USF — as well as EC Taylor, Sarah Seamans and Yvonne Whaley. Coming in to the program are four transfers and four freshman.

Syracuse had a much less eventful roster turnover. Two key losses in Ryan Starr to Ole Miss in the portal and Kaia Oliver. They had one transfer in Julianna Verni of Purdue and one key freshman addition in top 50 catcher Taylor Davison.

Virginia made their additions through their freshman class bringing in five top 100 players in infielders Brie Biddle (100), Macee Eaton (31) and Bella Cabral (51), catcher Melissa Carr (60) and pitcher Julia Cuozzo (23). They lost three players to the transfer portal — Molly Grube to James Madison, Gabby Baylog to Florida Atlantic and Mikaela Fox to Southern Miss — and two others in Tori Gilbert and Jenny Bressler.

Finally, Virginia Tech’s biggest addition comes to the coaching staff as they go from no pitching coach to one of the best in the country in Josh Johnson from Mississippi St. In his four years in Starkville, he reduced the Bulldogs era from 3.36 to 2.66.

After previewing those teams, Brian and Gwyn discuss Gwyn’s visit to one of the meccas of college sports, the Kibbie Dome!

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