Softball: Cajuns will never know what could have been at WCWS

Tim Buckley, The Advertiser, May 28, 2020

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If things were normal in the sports world, and all had gone as hoped for and expected by the UL softball team, the Ragin’ Cajuns would be opening play this week in the Women’s College World Series.

Originally scheduled to begin Thursday and run through early next week, the WCWS was to have been held — as usual — at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

But nothing has been usual in college sports — or at any level, for that matter — due to the deadly coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that shut down most activities in mid-March.

When the softball season first was postponed — it later was canceled altogether — UL was No. 1 in national RPI ratings.

The Cajuns also were ranked in the Top 10 of multiple national polls, including No. 6 according to D1Softball.com and No. 8 in the USA TODAY/NFCA coaches’ poll.

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UL coach Gerry Glasco watches play during a game against Samford last February. (Photo: Mike Curley/Special to the Advertiser)

It’s with all that in mind that the Cajun program was shaken when the season was cut short, knowing then that when this day rolled around the reality of what could have been would hit hard.

“I think that we knew, and I think we had already shown on the field, that we had a realistic chance to win the College World Series,” Cajuns coach Gerry Glasco said at the time.

“You know, I’ve coached 12 years of college softball,” added Glasco, a former associate head coach at both Georgia and Texas A&M. “And I don’t know that I ever had another team I thought would win the World Series.”

If there was one, Glasco said, it was “maybe” Georgia in 2011.

The Bulldogs finished in the top four of both the 2009 and 2010 WCWS, and things seemed set up for them to make another strong run that next season.

Yet Georgia didn’t even make it to Oklahoma City in 2011, falling instead to Baylor in a best-of-three Super Regional and finishing the year 51-14.

“So there’s always uncertainty,” Glasco said.

“But this particular (UL) team, when we went to Texas and Florida on the road and you win three out of five games, and they’re both in the top six teams in the country, (and) when you split with LSU, who’s a top five team at the last poll, legitimately you’ve got a really good shot.”

The Cajuns also split with Oklahoma State, another Top 10 team at the end, and they finished the abbreviated season 18-6.

But it wasn’t the record that mattered to Glasco so much as it was the quality of competition.

Glasco had designed his 2020 schedule knowing full well he had a potentially special club on his hands.

He wanted the Cajuns to be tested by the best of the best early and often, all in hopes that it would boost their RPI and allow them to host not only an NCAA Regional, which it has a dozen times since 1990, but also a Super Regional, which it has only once, in 2014.

As reflected by their No. 1 RPI rating, the plan was working — until the pandemic pushed rankings, and aspirations, to the back burner.

“So on paper,” Glasco said, “the kids really have put themselves in a position to … ”

Lost in disbelief at the time, his voice trailed for a moment.

And it’s no wonder Glasco seemed so rattled.

“Softball (usually) plays for a championship, whether it’s a (Sun Belt) Conference championship or an NCAA championship,” UL women’s basketball coach Garry Brodhead said.

“To not have that, for them, I’m sure — and the way they were playing, and the things they had done prior to conference — had to feel disheartening.”

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‘YOU CAN’T EAT FEATHERS’

It was heartbreaking indeed.

But Glasco was able to pick up his thought where he left off.

“You know,” he said, “if you go .500 against Top Eight teams, obviously you’re a Top Eight team when you seed for the NCAA Tournament.”

Which means UL would have hosted a Regional, and if it had won the Regional — something it had done five straight times from 2012-16 — it also would have hosted a Super Regional.

It would have had, in Glasco’s words, a “legitimate national seed.”

“If you dwell on that, that makes it hard,” Glasco said. “But I’m gonna look at it different.

“I’m gonna look at it like, ‘We’ve done everything we can do. We had accomplished the things we dreamed about all summer, the things we had taken on all fall. The things we planned to do we did, and we accomplished those things.’

“It’s just that,” Glasco said, “we don’t get to accomplish anything else.”

They don’t get to spend this weekend in Oklahoma City, something it sure seemed like they perhaps were on track to do.

Ultimately, UL’s final RPI ranking in a 24-game season doesn’t mean nearly as much as it might have for Glasco.

The prize was within reach, but he also acknowledges that the fight didn’t last long enough to know who would ultimately win.

“It’s kind of like hunting. You can’t eat feathers,” the Cajuns coach said back in March. “You can’t do a whole lot with that No. 1 RPI.

“It’s just a compliment to our program and a compliment to our players. … It means our kids accomplished what we set out to do with our schedule, and I’m proud of that.”

What’s done was done, and Glasco said back in March there’s no sense being sad or pouting about it.

“I’d rather be tough and resilient and think about the future in a positive way. You know, we’re gonna come back strong. We’re gonna come back and take another run at this thing, however long it takes us to get back in the position we were in when the suspension of the season came.”

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‘WE HAD ALL THE INTANGIBLES’

Flash forward three-plus months.

The Cajuns now know several key pieces, but not all, will be back.

Starting shortstop Alissa Dalton, standout pitcher Summer Ellyson and starting catcher/outfielder Julie Rawls all have announced they will take advantage of an NCAA rule allowing seniors to return in 2021 because their would-be final year in 2020 was spoiled by the coronavirus pandemic.

The case is the same for starting second baseman Kaitlyn Alderink, UL’s top hitter by average at .364 when the season ended, and reserve outfielder Morgan Gray.

But All-American pitcher Megan Kleist, starting first baseman/outfielder Sarah Hudek and reserve outfielder Alaina Guarino are not returning.

So Glasco spent recent weeks reshaping his team for next year.

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In April, adding to its class of early signees, UL announced it had signed infielder Jade Gortarez, a graduate transfer who began at Texas and most recently played at Arizona State, and Georgia high school product Brinson Rogers, a pitcher/first baseman from Statesboro (Georgia) High.

Two more additions, former Arizona pitcher Vanessa Foreman and Lake Land (Illinois) College outfielder Frankie Izard, were unveiled earlier this month.

And earlier this week UL said it has signed former South Carolina pitcher/outfielder Karly Heath.

“As soon as I realized what our roster was gonna be,” Glasco said, “I started trying to make sure we … get stronger.”

But until the 2021 season unfolds, not even a healthy crop of newcomers can fully mitigate the sting of what 2020 was not for the Cajuns.

They came so close to realizing what they wanted yet ended up so far from completing what they started.

Glasco still can’t get it out of his head.

“The conference tournament weekend, you realize you should be playing for (that). The first week of Regionals, you realize you should be in Regionals,” he said over the phone earlier this week. “The Super Regional weekend, you have those thoughts.

“And of course this week, it’s just something we’ve done for years and year, is watch the College World Series in the first week in June,” he added. “Everything — my professional life is built around that World Series, our personal lives have been built on watching the World Series as a family.”

The married father of three has one daughter, Tara Archibald, who is the head coach at Eastern Illinois, and had another, the late Geri Ann Glasco, a Cajuns volunteer assistant coach who played at both Georgia and Oregon.

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In addition to going to the WCWS twice with Georgia, he went with Texas A&M in 2017.

He planned to take UL this year too.

“So it’s definitely on my mind,” Glasco said on Tuesday, a day his Cajuns, if all was right in his world, should still be in the fight.

“You know … I’m always gonna regret the 2020 season was lost, because I felt like I had a season to not only go to Oklahoma City; I felt we had all the intangibles it takes to win the World Series.

“I think I can list five teams, and name who would have been the winner,” he added. “But it will never be played out, and we’ll never know for sure.”

So as much as Glasco did not want to be, he does obsess at times.

Yet even that is not the toughest part for Glasco, he suggested when asked if it was.

“Nah, for me it’s just knowing the kids were denied the opportunity,” he said. “It could have played out bad, it could have played out good; I’m just hated that the kids didn’t get the chance.

“And I feel bad for the fans more than myself. … Everything they give us and put into our Ragin’ Cajun program, I feel bad they miss out on that opportunity too.

“But for me personally,” Glasco added, “I just go to work and get ready for next year. I think we have a chance to have a really, really good ballclub.”

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