thewashingtondailynews
Its safe to say few collegiate student-athletes outside of football got to experience the kind of senior season Laci Campbell had.
The former Washington High School star helped Virginia Wesleyans Marlins softball team reach the NCAA Division III World Series with a 50-0 record at the time.
Along with fellow Pam Pack and freshman Emma Orr, the Marlins won their 17th Old Dominion Athletic Conference title and third straight en route to the World Series.
The Marlins eventually lost twice in the World Series and were eliminated, but that was the only downfall in a season for the record books.
I think obviously we have two of the best pitchers in the country at the D3 level on our team (Hannah Hearl, 26-1 and Emma Adams, 23-1), and that's huge, Campbell said.
We had the most amazing offense I've ever seen.
I mean, it was just phenomenal, and I think the biggest thing is our coach told us from as far as believing that we could actually do it, our coach told us from our first game that we could go undefeated this season if we wanted to.
So we kind of took that mentality and we were like, Yeah, we're gonna do it.
The talent was there, but accomplishing a feat like that is almost impossible.
College football teams have gone unbeaten many times, but it wasnt easy and with fewer games.
There have only been 17 Division I college basketball teams to go unbeaten and win a national title.
Virginia Wesleyan, which will change its name on July 1 to Batten University, started this past softball season strong and never let up.
The closest games before the World Series came against Bridgewater (4-2 on March 29; 1-0 on May 8), Randolph-Macon (2-0, April 3) and Pfeiffer (3-2 on May 16 in the NCA Regionals).
I think from the beginning it was just like we just wanted to go out and compete and win, Campbell said.
For me personally, I didn't even look that we were undefeated until we hit 40-0, and I was like, Wow, we've won 40 games and we haven't lost one, this is crazy.
I was like, Well, we just need to keep going.
The team also used as extra motivation the fact that assistant coach Jenna Wilson was battling Multiple Myeloma, a type of blood cancer that originates in the bone marrow.
She was getting treatment the whole year, she had a stem cell transplant, and she's actually cancer-free now, but I think that that just really motivated us, Campbell said.
We wanted to play for her, and do it for her.
It was actually at the World Series that she let us know that she was cancer-free.
The World Series losses were tough pills to swallow, 3-2 each time to Rowan and Linfield in double-elimination play.
That ended the Marlins remarkable season at 50-2.
The team earned a bevy of accomplishments, from Hearl getting National Pitcher of the Year to Adams and Morgan Tucker also being chosen to the Division III All-America squad.
Campbell earned third-team honors and finished the season batting .386 with 54 hits, seven doubles, four triples, a home run and 37 RBI.
She scored 70 runs and stole 55 bases, finishing with a .538 on-base percentage.
She was also chosen all-conference and was second-team all-region.
She graduated with a degree in sociology and one in criminal justice.
She is working to get her MBA and go back to Virginia Wesleyan on a grad internship her head coach, Brandon Elliott, helped her line up.
She said shell keep her eyes on the softball program and how Orr and the rest of the club do.
However, itll be hard to top this past season.
I got hit by like 20 pitches this year, worked my way through counts, laid down a bunt if I had to, I just wanted to get on, steal a base, and then hopefully my teammates would do the job and hit me in, and they did pretty much every time, Campbell said.
We (Orr and Campbell) actually played my senior year and it was her freshman year in high school, and that was the year we went to the state championships.
It was awesome having someone on the Pam Pack.
Wed talk about how we miss some Bills Hot Dogs, so Ive got someone who knows what I'm talking about.
It was cool.
We did some team bonding things and other fun things together.
Just talking with her at lunch and talking about her classes and stuff, and trying to tell her how the freshman year is a little difficult, you miss home, it's hard, but you just gotta stick it out and you'll see like how awesome it is.