A week after Alyson Habetz was announced as UL’s new head softball coach, the next step of announcing a coaching staff hasn’t been made official.
Habetz announced during her introductory press conference Shellie Landry would be returning as the team's hitting coach.
Earlier this week, Lacy Prejean resigned as head coach at Northwestern State after one season, theoretically to join Habetz’s staff. Prejean was an assistant coach in two different stints for the Cajuns — mostly recently from 2019-23 under coach Gerry Glasco.
Prejean also played under Habetz from 2000-03 at Alabama.
Both Habetz and Prejean have worked extensively as defensive coaches during his careers as assistant coaches. That means the big hole is locating a new pitching coach.
One likely candidate for that position is McNeese pitching coach Shelbi Sunseri, who also served as the Cowgirls’ recruiting coordinator this past season.
Sunseri was a two-way star at LSU with her final season being in 2022 with 48 career homers and 39 wins and a 2.41 ERA in her career in the circle.
During his first season at McNeese, the pitching staff led the Southland Conference with a 0.98 ERA with 13 shutouts and limiting opponents to a .184 batting average. That staff was led by senior Whitney Tate and junior Ashley Vallejo.
That stellar pitching staff got McNeese one out away from the super regionals, losing in the regional finals at Washington.
In 2024, however, Vallejo was limited to only five innings because of an injury and Sunseri turned to senior Shaelyn Sanders, who was 20-10 with a 1.76 ERA in 199.1 innings.
The pitchers didn’t depend on strikeouts as their primary weapon, leaning heavily on a strong defense to go 40-20 overall and 22-2 in league play.
As UL fans await final word on the coaching staff, the expected news of departures continued. Former Cajuns Mihyia Davis, Lauren Allred, Chloe Riassetto and Victoria Valdez followed Glasco to Texas Tech.
Third baseman Brooke Ellestad and pitcher Sam Landry also entered the transfer portal, but their destinations haven’t been announced.