By RYAN SHUMAKER
Sports Editor
The Rangers softball team will take to the field this weekend in their opening series in San Angelo, Texas under the new leadership of coach Charlie Zeilman.
Zeilman comes to Northwestern after a four year reign as head softball coach at LSU-Alexandria. While at LSU-Alexandria Zeilman led the program to many of its first time accomplishments including the program’s first World Series appearance.
In 2014, Zeilman was named the Louisiana Sports Writers Association’s College Coach of the Year as well as the A.I.I Conference Coach of the Year. Zeilman looks to implement that formula for success he developed at LSU-Alexandria in order to build a consistent winning program here in Alva. “Since I’ve been coaching since 1997 I’ve tried to do things the same way, and that’s to treat the kids with success, try and instill self-discipline in our program and try and have fun while doing it.” Zeilman said.
Zeilaman has been a part of building two other programs throughout his coaching career and has a few core players already here at Northwestern to help him continue developing that winning formula. Senior Jordan Haya, who was a 2015 Second-Team All Great American selection as well as the conferences Newcomer of the Year, will be back to headline the Rangers line-up. Zeilman expects Maddie Mcgraw, a sophomore from Broken Arrow, Okla. to be pivotal in the team’s success as she will bat in third spot in the line-up while also roaming the outfield in left field.
As well as some players that are returning from last year’s squad, Zeilman has brought in a few players at the semester break which will make a huge impact for his team. Zeilman credits his experience at previous institutions for his success in bringing in so many quality players that will make an immediate difference.
“The last place I was at, at LSU-Alexandria, is in the middle of nowhere and when I first got there everybody told me that nobody will come here and play, we were 8-37 and hadn’t had a winning record in the history of the program,” said Zeilman. “When I left we were the number one ranked team in the country two years in a row, number one ranked seed at the college world series two years in a row.”
Zeilman learned at LSU-Alexandria that you can only sell to recruits what you do have and saw Northwestern as an affordable university that good quality players would be attracted to.
That attraction has led to the acquisition of five new players, many of which will make up the core of Zeilman’s pitching staff.
Brittany Olender, a transfer pitcher from Hutchinson Community College in Kansas, will be the number one pitcher to begin the year for the Rangers. Following Olender in the pitching rotation appears to be Jalena Arthur, a freshman out of Antlers, Okla, followed by two promising young transfer pitchers including sophomore Madison Garza, a transfer from the University of Houston-Victoria, who earned Second-Team All-Conference honors while there.
Zeilman will test his formula for success here at Northwestern beginning this weekend in San Angelo, Texas with a double header Saturday against host San Angelo University and then against Adams State University before concluding the road trip on Sunday against Texas-A&M International University. The Rangers first home series won’t be until Feb. 19-20 at the Alva Rec. Complex when they begin conference play against the Savage Storm of Southeastern Oklahoma State University.