Leo Cavell
May 24, 2011
James Walker
May 26, 2011
It didn’t take long for Nicholls State junior third baseman Ashley Ray to make her mark on softball in the Southland Conference.
In her first season in Thibodaux after transferring from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, Ray won a litany of awards this past week, including the highest honor possible, the Southland Conference Player of the Year.
“I was definitely surprised,” Ray said. “It came as a big shock. I knew I had worked my butt off all season, but I just wasn’t really sure how things were going to fall out towards the end of the season.”
Ray was the fifth Colonel in history to take home the Southland’s highest honor, joining Leanne Beeler (’92), Amy Orr (’95), Rashunda Taylor (’96) and Courtney Blades (’98).
She earned her place at the top with one of the best offensive seasons in Southland Conference history.
The Lafayette native almost became the first player in the history of the conference to win the triple crown for a season, placing first in the league in home runs (17), RBIs (51), but second in batting average with a .369 mark.
She was also in the top 10 in several other offensive categories, including finishing third in hits with 62, seventh in runs with 34, while finishing first in the league with 142 assists.
Because this was her first season in the league, Ray was also tabbed as the Southland Conference’s Newcomer of the Year.
She was also named to the Southland Conference’s First Team.
She said her success came as a surprise to her because of how far removed she was from being an everyday player with the Ragin’ Cajuns.
Ray spent two seasons there and played sparingly, which ultimately led to her decision to move on.
“Coming in to Nicholls, I didn’t really know what to expect,” Ray said. “At UL, I didn’t really play a whole lot, so I had two years over there where I wasn’t really getting much playing time, so coming in here, I didn’t know how I was going to do. I just knew that I was going to work hard and hopefully, it was going to pay off. I’m just glad it did.”
With her trophy case now full, Ray said she’s focusing on improvement – especially defensively.
If there were a flaw in her game a year ago, Ray admits it would be with her glove. As the Colonels’ third baseman, she posted just a .938 fielding percentage and committed 13 errors.
“I need to shore up on my defense some,” Ray said. “My fielding percentage was in the lower 900s and that’s not good enough for me, so I’m going to fine tune on that. I’m just going to work on getting stronger and getting quicker so I can get in position to make more plays on defense.”
A born hitter, Ray admitted, she’s not abandoning her position as an elite hitter, either.
“I can still improve on my hitting,” she said. “There’s still a lot more that I can do. I definitely don’t want to go backwards.”
With individual accolades aside, Ray said her main focus for next season is team success – something that eluded the Colonels in 2011.
Nicholls finished the season with a 15-37 record and just a 7-22 mark inside of the conference, suffering from growing pains with a mostly underclassman roster.
But the team did finish the season winning six of its final 10 games, including taking two of three games from Stephen F. Austin on the road to close the season.
That late-season success has Ray confident that the growing pains may be over in Thibodaux.
“We’re going to be young again next year, so that can’t be our excuse,” Ray said. “This year, we kind of talked about being young and we didn’t really expect it to be a rebuilding year at the beginning of the year because we thought we’d be coming in strong, but that’s kind of what it turned into. We’re going to do everything we can to not have another year like that.”
Oh yeah, and having the best player in the conference to rely on won’t hurt, especially considering she’s already set the bar for herself to have a better season in 2012.
“I know what my weaknesses are just like everyone else in the conference does,” Ray said. “So all I have to do is work on that and I think I’ll be fine. Coming into next year, I know exactly what pitches I’ll be getting, so if I can just execute on those, I feel like I can have another season just like this one.”
Nicholls State junior softball player Ashley Ray readies for a pitch during a game this season. Ray was recently named the Southland Conference Player of the Year after hitting .369 with 17 home runs and 51 RBIs in her first season with the Colonels. NSU SPORTS MEDIA
