PALATKA, Fla. – The St. Johns River State College softball team is heading back to the NJCAA DII Softball World Series.
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The Vikings look to claim their second national championship in three years.
The SJR State Vikings are playing great softball and look to keep it up as they compete for a national title.
Head coach Joe Pound is in his fifth season leading the team.
Pound said there are 15 new players on the squad.
He says he enjoyed watching the team gel as the season progressed.
So much so, the Vikings just set a new single season record of home runs hit with 118 so far and counting.
“When I took over the job, our goal was to be a competitive team each and every year,” Pound said. “It is a credit to the players the last couple of years to set that standard for us.”
Pound says the Vikings need to stay focused and committed to playing their style.
“Just sticking with what we are working on,” he said. “With so many new players playing for me for the first time in a new environment. A little bit of struggles in the middle but sticking with the process of understanding the things that we like to do. When we do those things, we play well.”
SJR State brought home some hardware in 2024 when the Vikings won the school’s first championship.
The team made it back to the World Series the following season where it finished in third place.
Now, it seems like a standard or expectation to reach the national tournament.
“This team has been really good when we do not try to do too much,” Pound said. “For the most part, that means not chasing bad pitches. If we are disciplined at the plate and we swing at good pitches, we can score a bunch of runs. Our pitching and defense has been pretty good all year.”
The Vikings are heading to Spartanburg, South Carolina for the World Series. They are leaving campus Sunday at 10 a.m. 20 teams are in the tournament.
The World Series starts on Tuesday May 19. The Vikings play their first game on Wednesday when they take on South Mountain Community College out of Arizona. First pitch is at 1:30 p.m. on May 20.
A champion is going to be crowned on Sunday, May 24.