After senior pitcher McKenna McCard secured the final out and the Coastal Athletic Association Championship for the Elon University softball team with a fly out, head coach Kathy Bocock didn’t immediately rush to celebrate with her ecstatic players but instead stayed back.
After seeing the ball hit the fielder’s glove, Bocock turned around and hung out in the dugout for a few minutes, glancing over the field the team had battled on over the last three days, and took in the significance of the moment. Bocock said she had to give herself a minute because it was such an emotional moment.
“It's been a long time for Elon, I've been working hard to put a group together and get here,” Bocock said. “It's hard to put into words sometimes, when you just get where you've been trying to get to for a while, and watching these girls and how excited they were, they earned that. They deserve that. So I was just so excited for that.”
Elon’s win over Campbell on May 10 secured the program’s first ever CAA Championship and the second ever league title since joining Division I in 2000, with the last one coming in 2010. Senior Kaitlyn Wells was red-hot at the plate, getting a tournament-high eight runs batted in and was named the Most Outstanding Player at the tournament. She joined redshirt junior Chloe Hatzopoulos, senior Allee Seering and fifth year Meredith Wells on the CAA All-Tournament team.
After earning a first round bye as the No. 2 seed, the Phoenix kicked the tournament off with a 4-3 win over the College of Charleston. Elon’s depth shined as seven different players registered a hit. McCard dominated on the mound, only allowing one run in four innings. Elon entered the seventh inning up 4-2, but relief pitcher Anna Dew loaded the bases and let up one run to trim the lead to one. However, Dew got out of the jam and secured the win.
Elon would advance to face tournament host and No. 4 seed Campbell in the semifinals for the first of many matchups in the CAA Tournament. The team struggled to find an offensive rhythm, only registering two hits against Campbell, and lost 6-2 in dominant fashion. Meredith said they didn’t make the adjustments they needed to at the plate.
Despite the loss, the tournament was a double-elimination tournament, meaning Elon had to lose one more game before it was eliminated. Elon faced off against No. 1 seed Delaware next, and Bocock said the Campbell loss helped motivate the team going into the Delaware game and ultimately led to winning the championship.
“Our team knew that we either win or we're done,” Bocock said. “They just came together and they had a lot of confidence, and they were just like, ‘Let's go. Let's just relax and just go play ball and whatever happens happens.’”
Meredith said they tried not to put too much pressure on the game and focus on the fundamentals.
“We had played Delaware in the regular season, so we knew what they were going to bring to the table,” Meredith said. “We played our game, and the hitters just adjusted really well at the plate, and I did my best to keep their hitters off balance, and we just had fun. We didn't put extra pressure on ourselves, but we wanted that game more than they did.”
Meredith excelled against one of the best offenses in the CAA in Delaware, letting up zero runs in her five innings of play and racking up three strikeouts. Seering got two hits and an RBI. Elon entered the final inning up 3-2, and Dew got three outs in a row to secure the save and send Elon to the championship game in a rematch against Campbell.
Since Campbell hadn’t dropped a game in the tournament yet, Elon had to beat Campbell twice in a row to secure the CAA Championship. Meredith said playing Campbell six times this season between the regular season series and its three games in the tournament allowed them to really understand their strengths and weaknesses.
“We were just trying to get better each game that we played them,” Meredith said. “I think that our hitters did an amazing job of just hunting the pitches that they wanted to hit … At the top of their lineup, they have speed, they have power, and I think we just did a great job of communicating that and trying to keep them off the bases the best as we could.”
Elon jumped to a fast start against Campbell in game one, scoring two first inning runs thanks to an RBI by Kaitlyn. A three-run seventh inning added insurance runs, and a Meredith save — tying her for the most in program history — secured the 5-0 win for Elon.
Bocock was confident going into the second game, believing that if they could win the first, they could win the second. After the game one win, Bocock turned to her staff and told them that they had to start Meredith in game two. According to Bocock, Campbell never adjusted to Meredith when she came in for relief in game one. Bocock said Elon just needed Meredith to get the Phoenix through a few innings and allow its offense to get going.
Elon’s bats were hot as they scored three runs in the third inning off two scorching home runs. Kaitlyn hit a two-run blast, setting a new program single-season record for home runs. Hatzopoulos followed Kaitlyn with a solo home run of her own, giving Elon a 4-0 lead. Campbell responded with two runs in the fourth inning, ending Meredith’s day, but that would be the last time Campbell scored this season. Dew came in as relief, holding Campbell to one hit, and struck out two. McCard, the team’s ace throughout the season, came in for the final out and secured the championship for Elon.
“When the last out happened, I didn't know what to do, I wanted to be so happy. I wanted to cry, I was feeling all of the emotions and I think doing it with this group of girls just really made it mean so much more,” Wells said.
Bocock said she is proud of how hard the team worked this year.
“I really felt like this was the team that could win the championship, there was never a doubt in my mind that we couldn't win the championship this year,” Bocock said. “All the hard work that these young ladies and my coaching staff put in and the time, it paid off. It paid off.”
Bocock said a big reason why this was the team to get it done was their chemistry. She said the chemistry has slowly been building over the past few years. Wells agreed and said their love for each other helps them win.
“We knew going into this year that we had a lot of talent, but once we started playing with each other, our team chemistry was just so good,” Wells said. “We don't put any pressure on ourselves. We just go out there like best friends and have the best time. It really, truly is fun.”
Elon’s conference championship earned them an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, and the Phoenix will travel to the NCAA Columbia Regional to face off against No. 8 in the nation the University of South Carolina at 5:30 p.m. May 16. The Regional is being hosted by South Carolina. Bocock said the team’s tough schedule this season has prepared them for this moment and the team is ready to play anyone.
“They're going to put their uniform on and we're going to put ours on the same way, and we just got to go and compete,” Bocock said.