Heading into the 2024 softball campaign, head coach Tyra Perry is eager to see her team improve after last year’s 29-27 record.
Perry is currently entering her ninth year as the head coach of the softball program, expecting improvement after a disappointing season that saw the Illini finish No. 12 in the standings. This comes after the 2022 season, where the Illini finished No. 3 in the standings.
Coach Perry currently has a 243-166 record during her eight seasons at Illinois and feels confident she can have success for this upcoming year.
“We are not happy with last year and how we ended,” Perry said. “We’ve adopted the theory and culture of toughness and we are working on what that means to us. We have been having poignant conversations about what it means to the coaching staff compared to the players. We have been trying to eliminate what we call loser talk.”
As the team prepares for the upcoming season, they will try to eliminate the negativity that comes with not having a good season. The difficulty of winning is enough of a motivating factor for a team that has just finished in third place two years ago.
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The team gets an early test entering the Auburn tournament taking place Feb. 9-11. The tournament includes Auburn, Virginia Tech and Belmont.
Since being hired at Illinois, Perry has had 30-plus win seasons from 2016 to 2019. The 2020 season got canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Illini finished with an 11-11 record at the time of cancellations.
“Our current captain is Megan Ward,” Perry said. “She was a captain last year for the first time, and I think it gives her a great perspective going into this season. She transferred in, so she has a different perspective from different programs.”
Senior infielder Megan Ward will be a focal point in the leadership role and will be called upon to help drive the team going into the year. Ward had a batting average of .286 last year while also batting in two home runs on the year.
Ward transferred into the program after her freshman year and stayed a year at Dayton, where she was A10 Second-Team All-Conference. She started all 56 games at the shortstop position in 2023 and had 44 hits and 21 runs scored.
“We also have Stevie Meade, a newly elected captain,” Perry said. “She is a tough kid, doesn’t talk a whole lot, but she will speak up when she needs to. You can tell the team respects her.”
Junior outfielder Stevie Meade is entering the captain role this year after she started all 56 games as a sophomore in the program. Meade was No. 2 on the team with multihit games, hitting 15 last season. She was also tied on the team for triples last year, having three to finish off the 2023 campaign.
As the team prepares to head into the 2024 season, they are eager to have a bounce-back year and finish in the top half of the Big Ten. The team knows they can be better than what they were before, and Perry wants to see that out of them in the upcoming campaign.
“We are trying to speak more on the affirmative and having accountability,” Perry said. “There will be days where you just don’t feel like being tough, but that’s where your teammates come in and coaches come in to encourage you to persevere and press on anyway.”
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