Former Prep Fastpitch Standouts Meet Again Reunite At Ncaa Regional Softball Tournament

It has been nearly four years since Keri McCallum faced Tara Garner on the fastpitch diamond.

The former West Puget Sound prep standouts will meet again Thursday, when the NCAA Region No. 1 softball tournament gets under way in Seattle at Husky Softball Stadium. McCallum’s Mississippi State Bulldogs play Garner’s Tennessee-Chattanooga Mocs in round one.

They last met in the 1996 state semifinals at Tacoma’s South End Recreation Area, where McCallum’s South Kitsap Wolves beat Garner and Central Kitsap, 4-2.

McCallum, a senior, is Mississippi State’s catcher and four-time All-SEC first-team selection. The Bulldogs (42-25) are the No. 2 seed in the region. Garner, a sophomore, plays left field for No. 5 UTC (46-25).

Both schools are making the their first appearance in an NCAA softball regional.

No. 1-ranked Washington (57-7) is the region’s top seed.

McCallum earned her fourth All-SEC honor last week, coming in as the only unanimous choice on the first team. She has some familiarity with Tennessee-Chattanooga.

The Sun’s 1996 Female Athlete of the Year, McCallum was drafted (10th overall) last year by the Tampa Bay Fire Stix of the Women’s Pro Softball League. She played for Team USA Blue, understudies to the U.S. Olympic Team, last June. She led South to the Class AAA state title in ‘95 and to a second-place finish in ‘96.

This year, McCallum broke the Bulldogs’ single-season record for hits with 92, batting .405 through the first 67 games. She ranks as the SEC’s all-time leader in hits and triples.

Mississippi State and UTC met once this year, with the Bulldogs prevailing 7-5 Feb. 19 in the Mississippi State Bulldog Classic.

“She’s a great ballplayer,” Garner said of McCallum. “We really respect Mississippi State. Each time we’ve played them, we lost by a run or two.

“When we played them at their tournament, they scored seven runs, and six of them were unearned. Take those away, and we would have won that game.”

While Mississippi State was assured an at-large bid to regionals, UTC had to win the Southern Conference tourney. To accomplish that, the Mocs battled through the losers bracket and beat top-seeded Furman twice to gain the Southern Conference’s first automatic NCAA Tournament bid.

“That was a big one; we wanted to be the first in team to take it,” Garner said. “They beat us when we played them the first time, but we beat them when it counted.”

UTC has won four of the last five Southern Conference titles, but this year the team had a different complexion.

“We were the underdogs,” Garner said. “This is a new team, really. We haven’t done anything for people to look at us and say, `Oh, UTC’. We had nothing to lose.”