By TOM BONE
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
ATHENS —
Game day is finally here for the Concord University softball team and its new coach Alisa Tasler.
The season begins this weekend in central North Carolina. The first two games, set for today, come in the form of a doubleheader at Fayetteville State, followed by two Sunday games at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian College in Laurinburg, N.C.
The first home contest is scheduled for 3 p.m. on March 20 when Lees-McRae College arrives from North Carolina for a doubleheader.
Eight returnees join 20 newcomers on the roster. Junior Tamara Smith was the winning pitcher in 10 of Concord’s games last season. Stephanie Harper batted .346 a year ago while Becca Gleason hit .318.
Among the freshmen are Karsyn Boothe, a James Monroe High graduate, and Katey Adkins of Hinton.
Tasler, an Oklahoma native, has been on the job in Athens since Jan. 3. She inherited the program from Sabrina McCullough, who coached the team for two years. In fact, Concord has had four softball coaches in the last six years.
Kevin Garrett, Concord’s director of athletics, said when Tasler’s appointment was announced, “Alisa Tasler will be an outstanding addition to our athletic department.
“She brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to our softball program. Her personality and leadership skills make her a great fit for Concord.”
Tasler will also serve as the “game-day administrator” for several other Concord sports.
She said in an interview last week that the Lady Lions team “has a lot of heart. We’ve got a lot of kids who are all fighting for that starting role at this point. Tons of competition, tons of great work ethic.”
As a college athlete at Northern Oklahoma College, Tasler set a number of school records as a pitcher, and helped the basketball squad to back-to-back conference championships.
She said on Concord’s athletics website, “Being a pitcher, in my playing days, really helps me now as a coach. Being in the circle, you have to see the whole game, and I'm blessed to have had that opportunity.”
Her first coaching duties have also helped prepare her for her new job, she said.
“I started my coaching career at Pittsburg (Kan.) State University while I was getting my master’s degree,” she said. “I was primarily their pitching coach there.”
“I really credit a lot of my success to Pittsburg State. I was under a great softball coach there, Jennifer Wells. Together we built a really good program there.”
During that time, the Gorillas softball team was second in the nation in combined grade-point average, an indication of Tasler’s commitment to academics.
For the last 6 1/2 years, she was the head softball coach at Neosho County (Kan.) Community College, where her teams combined for a .523 winning percentage.
She said the community college was “the kind of place where you didn’t have lots of outside help, and I think for my first job that was a godsend, because you learned to do everything — you had to do your own field maintenance, you had to do your own website, you had to drive your own van, you had to do everything.”
“I really embraced that part, and I think it made me a much better, more self-sufficient coach.”
“Coming here, it’s a different world. You have help, you have other outside resources that are going to make your job easier, where you can really work more on the coaching side of it [rather] than everything else that goes with it.”
“That’s one of the things that I think is very, very refreshing about Concord. I’m going to get to come in here and really coach these kids. I’m really excited about that.”
Her first priorities were discipline and instilling success, she said.
“You always have to set the parameters, to make sure the girls know where the boundaries are,” she said. “They need consistency; they need disciplined. Anybody and everybody does. They need to know where they stand.
“From day one, we wanted to have a good practice plan, and let them know what was expected — and how to be successful. The more you give them those tools, the more successful they will be.”
Returning designated hitter-pitcher Harper said about Tasler, “She’s brought a lot of support and strength to the team. She’s just changed little things, but they’ve just made huge improvements.”
“I think it’s going to be a completely different team from what the conference usually sees, so I think it’s going to be really good.”
Last week’s preseason coaches poll predicted Concord would finish 11th in the 14-team West Virginia Conference. The Lady Lions were 19-23 last season.
Tasler said, “We are very young this year. We have one senior [Emily Gallagher].”
She is happy to have a variety of pitchers on the roster, though not all of them will be starters.
“That is a great option to have,” she said. “Currently we have five pitchers on the roster. We’re going to pick the top three, and those are going to be ones who are primarily going to work this year.”
“Some of them are works in progress, and you have to have those kids, who will develop and will grow. This year may not be their year, but with them putting the work out, they will be there when it gets to be their junior or senior year.”
Harper said, “We’re getting really strong. We have four or five pitchers, so we’re definitely deep. We’re all a little bit different, so we’ll all bring different aspects to the game because of that.”
The 5-foot-5 Harper said about her style, “Where I’m shorter, it’s more movement pitches than speed.”
She said the hitting in the conference is “pretty strong, but I don’t think it’s anything you can’t get around. If you’re smart as a pitcher, you can definitely overcome that.”
Smith is again expected to be the ace. Tasler said, “She does a very good job. She’s very confident when she steps into the circle. She’s the type of kid that can take control of a game, and as your top pitcher, you have to have that. You have to have that kid that knows, no matter what happens, she can step out there and she can take care of business.”
“She has a lot of movement on her ball. We’re working on developing a little bit more speed, on more pitch selection, and on determining when to throw what, where.
“I like my pitchers to have a little bit of control with that, because it’s their head on the chopping block, so they have to believe in what they’re throwing. We want those pitchers to get behind that pitch and really throw it hard. She does a good job of that.”
Turning to the offense, Tasler said, “We have some good hitters. I have been told that we lost quite a few. I think the biggest thing we are really going to have to work on this year is the consistency at the plate. ... Right now, that’s kind of where we struggle.
“But as time goes on, I see that getting better. Those kids will blossom, and I think we’ll do OK at the plate.”
Harper said, “I think we’re pretty strong throughout the whole lineup.”
She was limited to designated-hitter duties last season because of a freak injury while she was pitching in fall ball during her sophomore year.
“I got hit in the shin with a line drive and I had nerve damage to the leg,” she said. “It took about a year to fix. ... They had to go in and pretty much numb the nerves so it would stop hurting.”
“It took awhile for the doctors to figure out what it was. I had to go home — I’m from Nevada — for the doctors to figure out actually what was wrong with me.” The diagnosis was a nerve dystrophy, but Harper said, “It’s good now. It’s fixed. ... I got back into it pretty quick.”
She added, “I am really, really excited. Last year, all I did was hit, so this year I’m excited to get back into everything.”
That goes for the team as a whole, said their new coach.
“I think they’ve done a great job of coming together,” Tasler said. “They have that common goal, they want that winning season and they want it really bad.
“That was one of the things in the interview process that I was really impressed with, with the young ladies. They want it. They knew what they wanted to ask. They knew what kind of a coach they wanted.”
“I felt like it was going to be a good fit. That’s what made it really, really exciting for me — how invested the girls were in their team.”
“We’re looking, I think, really good this year,” Harper said. “The girls are really starting to come together this year.”
Tamara Perkins is serving as Tasler’s assistant coach.
— Contact Tom Bone at
tbone@bdtonline.com
