Bryce Hayes
For Immediate Release
SEGUIN, Texas — The nine-time defending Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC) champion Texas Lutheran softball team has been voted by the league’s head coaches as the preseason favorite in the 2024 SCAC Preseason Poll Tuesday.
The Bulldogs received 63 points in the poll including each of the seven available first place votes, as coaches cannot vote for their own team. St. Thomas followed in second place with 54 points while Southwestern earned 42 points to land in third. This marks the tenth straight year that TLU has topped the conference’s preseason poll.
Trinity was selected fourth (41 points), Centenary fifth (32), Schreiner sixth (29), Austin College seventh (17), and Dallas eighth (10).
The Bulldogs finished the SCAC regular season 19-2 in 2023 en route to their ninth consecutive conference regular season crown. The Bulldogs enter the 2024 season with a 192-5 (.975) league record and have not lost a conference series since joining the conference in 2014.
The program has won 17 SCAC titles (nine SCAC regular season titles and eight SCAC tournament championships), all under head coach Wade Wilson.
Texas Lutheran returns four first-team All-SCAC selections from last season, including NFCA All-Americans: reigning SCAC Player of the Year Caelee Clark (Montgomery/Lake Creek), reigning SCAC Newcomer of the Year Serena Gonzalez (Corpus Christi/Foy H. Moody), and reigning SCAC Pitcher of the Year Ashlyn Strother (Seabrook/Clear Falls). In total, TLU returns three NFCA All-Americans, five NFCA All-Region players, and eight All-SCAC players from a season ago.
2024 SCAC SOFTBALL PRESEASON POLL
1. Texas Lutheran – 63 (7)2. St. Thomas – 54 (1)3. Southwestern – 424. Trinity – 415. Centenary – 326. Schreiner – 297. Austin College – 178. Dallas – 10
For more information on Texas Lutheran softball, follow the Bulldogs on Facebook (@txlutheransoftball), X (Twitter) (@TLUsoftball), and Instagram (@tlu_softball) and as always you can find updates on all Texas Lutheran athletics on tlubulldogs.com and all official TLU social media channels (@tluathletics on Twitter, @tlu_athletics on Instagram and TikTok, and @tlubulldogs on Facebook).