Tops of the Sun Belt Moment #30 – 2013 Softball Champs

In just 30 short days, Western Kentucky will make the official transition from the Sun Belt to Conference USA. And, while many people who love and follow WKU can’t wait for the jump, there were certainly plenty of fantastic moments from the past 30+ years of Sun Belt competition.

All throughout June, we will be counting down the 30 best moments that WKU saw while in the Fun Belt, ranging from sports that many people might not pay much attention to (softball, soccer, etc) all the way to obvious moments from basketball and football. To begin our series, we look back on the 2013 WKU softball team, which was the first squad to ever win a conference regular season title.

Softball has only been on the Hill, and an official Sun Belt sport, since 2000, and while the Lady Toppers haven’t always been the class of the conference, they haven’t always been terrible either. But, in 2013, the Ladies had their time in the spotlight, as a 43-18 overall record, and a 20-3 Sun Belt mark, lead them to their first ever softball championship, and it came in the sweetest of ways off of a double header sweep of MTSU.

2013 saw an abundance of runs be scored, as well as a very powerful and well hitting lineup that featured (since departed) Katrina Metoyer, Karavin Dew and Ciara Garcia, as well as help from the underclasswomen Olivia Watkins, Preslie Cruce and Amanda Thomas. The squad even set a school record for runs scored over a three game span, as they had 35 players cross home plate in a mid-April series against ULM.

2013 also saw a shutout victory over nationally ranked Missouri and just three conference losses, eventually falling short to those pesky Jaguars from South Al in the softball tournament. But, they were recognized by the NCAA, and earned a well deserved at-large bid into a regional, ultimately falling short to Alabama.

When 2013 was said and done, the Lady Toppers had finished with a team batting average of .283, team ERA of 2.24 and 50 home runs from the offense.

Well, this is the beginning of something we hope is fun throughout this month. If you have a moment you want recognized, tweet us at @WaveTheRedTowel with the hashtag “#TopsMoments.”