Rarely do we get second chances in life, but with the NCAA allowing seniors to return for a fifth year due to the spring 2020 season being cut short, several student-athletes couldn’t run out on that opportunity. Ansley Gilreath, Madyson Watson, and Ashley Westbrooks are three softball players who have chosen to return for a fifth year at Winthrop University.
The team was 12-11 after their last game on March 11 and all three players were enjoying their first day of spring break at Florida’s Disney Springs when the cancellation news hit.
“I remember the look [Winthrop softball Head Coach Windy] Thees gave me and I just knew. It was over,” Gilreath said.
At the time, nobody knew if they would ever get to play together again, and if they did get the chance, there was the possibility that not every senior would come back.
“I had worked so hard for something that had just been taken away from me and I didn’t even get a say in it,” Gilreath said. “I knew that this was the best deduction considering the outbreak of [COVID-19], but that didn’t stop the tears from flowing…I just kept reminding myself of my favorite bible verse ‘God is within her, she will not fail — Psalm 46:5.’”
Even though Gilreath misses interacting with classmates and professors during in person classes, staying an extra semester for one final full season of softball was “an easy choice.” After graduation, the biology major is planning to attend medical school next fall.
“I look forward to being able to finish out my college career with my sisters on and off the field. Personally, I hope to break the single season and career home run records as well as make it to over 100 career RBIs and hit over .300. Go big or go home,” Gilreath said.
Gilreath, an infielder, currently has 78 career RBIs, and in 2020 she led the team with a career-high batting average of .391, ranking her sixth in the Big South.
Practices are now organized into smaller groups to avoid the whole team being close together constantly. Only four girls are allowed in the locker room to change at a time, and masks must be worn any time players are in close proximity to each other.
“If we come in for a huddle we have to stay 6 feet apart and mask up. It’s very different but I’m grateful we still get to play,” Gilreath said.
Gilreath’s most memorable times at Winthrop actually happen off the field, like watching movies or eating with her teammates.
“I love that I got to experience this team in college. These girls will be my friends for life and they will be in my wedding,” Gilreath said.
Westbrooks’ hectic internship and mounds of paperwork for her teaching certificate are definitely keeping her busy until the spring season, but luckily she still has her teammates to help her through it all.
“My teammates are very supportive and always ask how my day was at school and if I am still enjoying everything I am doing,” Westbrooks said.
A catcher and utility player for the Eagles, Westbrooks’ busy schedule leads her desperately awaiting her return to the field after not being able to finish the spring 2020 season.
“Softball has always been something that was an ‘escape’ from everything else going on in my life, and to think that this ‘escape’ wasn’t going to be there for me was hard to grasp,” Westbrooks said.
Westbrooks is ranked fourth on the team with a .329 batting average and is the 10th player in program history to reach 100 career RBI. She also ranks in the top-10 of seven all-time categories with 3rd in slugging percentage, sixth in hit-by-pitch, seventh in RBI and home runs, eighth in doubles, and ninth in on-base percentage and batting average.
“The thing I look forward to most is watching how well we are going to compete with each other and against the other teams. Our team chemistry this year is probably the best it has been in a while, and when we are on the field, we always are giving everything we have for the person beside us,” Westbrooks said.
Unlike her teammates, Watson was not planning to stay at Winthrop for fall 2020, let alone spring 2021. She already had her entrance into the police academy lined up, so she was determined not to go through another year for her bachelor’s degree, so she was “finishing whether [she] liked it or not.”
“I am working on my master’s in social work which I never planned on getting. So now I will be looking for a graduate position after this spring to help coach and help to get my last year of master’s paid for,” Watson said.
Unfamiliar with the workload of a master’s degree, Watson’s assignments are also proving to be a new adjustment this semester.
“I have way more paper writing which I am not the best at, but I work hard at it,” Watson said.
Watson’s bachelor’s in sociology with a concentration in criminology will give her a wide range of careers to choose from, so she “plans to get a job in a substance abuse center, addiction prevention, developmental disabilities, special investigations or something with mental health.”
With this year posing many new challenges, one thing that Watson is trying to do is keep up with her younger teammates.
“I have had three surgeries and I am the oldest player on the team, so I try to still beat the underclassmen and show them that even the oldies can hang,” Watson said.
A pitcher on the team, Watson drove a career-high of 16 RBI in 2019 over 37 games, and came close to matching that with 13 RBI in just the 23 games of spring 2020.
One of Watson’s best games in the short 2020 season was against Delaware State University on Feb. 21 when she drove in a career-best of five runs and had her first multi-homerun game of her career.
Approaching her final softball season, Watson is really looking forward to traveling to Miami, Florida to play and to College Station, Texas to compete against Texas A&M. Aside from winning the Big South Championship, Watson also hopes to take an SEC win.
“I have an ACC [win], now I need an SEC. A personal goal for me is to end the overall season with an era of 2.00 and to go undefeated in the Big South Conference,” Watson said.
After beating Longwood University in the first game of the Big South Championship two years ago, but ultimately coming up just short during Thees’ first season at Winthrop, the Eagles are ready more than ever to bring home the championship.
Photo by Olivia Essleman
