Breaking News: USA Softball Jr. Women’s National Team Members Announced

Information below provided by USA Softball

The opportunity to represent the United States as a member of the 2019 USA Softball Junior Women’s National Training Team became real for 20 athletes following a three-day selection process, USA Softball announced today.

Selected by members of the Women’s National Team Selection Committee (WNTSC), these athletes will compete in select tournaments/invitational events before the final 17-player roster for the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) U-19 Women’s Softball World Cup will be finalized.

“The 2019 19-Under team was selected based on dominant pitching, defense and offense,” said 2019 JWNT Head Coach Heather Tarr (Redmond, Wash./Head Coach at Washington).

“The team will be led by the current college freshmen in the NCAA.  We are excited to begin our journey together in pursuit of the Gold Medal this August in Irvine, California.  I want to thank all of the athletes who competed in the tryout process. We appreciate the work done by the coaches and USA Softball staff at the trials and the committee members who were involved in the selection of this year’s team.”

Click here to see the athletes selected to the 2019 USA Softball Junior Women’s National Training Team.

Representing the U.S. this summer will be a roster that includes veteran members Julia Cottrill (Stillwater, Okla.), Lexi Kilfoyl (Land O’Lakes, Fla.) and Kathryn Sandercock (McLean, Va.), who return from the 2017 Junior Women’s Training Team that placed fifth at the World Cup of Softball while Sandercock was also a member of the 2017 WBSC Junior Women’s World Championship Gold Medal-winning roster.

Additionally, four athletes who advanced from the 2019 JWNT Open Tryouts also made the final 2019 Junior Women’s National Training Team roster – Bailey Dowling (St. Joseph, Ill.), Kelli Godin (Seal Beach, Calif.), Frankie Hammoude (Oakland, Calif.) and Madison Huskey (Cerritos, Calif.).

Collegiately, eight NCAA Division I universities have student-athletes on the 2019 training team roster – Alabama and UCLA each have two athletes while Baylor, Florida State, Michigan State, Oregon, Oregon State and Washington are each represented by one student-athlete.

“The players on this team all come from Championship JO programs and each has a background in playing for Championships. I am excited to help these women reach their personal goals as athletes while at the same time help guide them to become the best 19-Under softball team in the world by August,” Tarr continued.

Announced in fall of 2018, Tarr will lead the Red, White and Blue in their quest for a three-peat at the WBSC U-19 Women’s World Cup.  The complete coaching staff and list of National Team events, including exhibition games, will be released at a later date.