Today: Mar 28, 2024

Jillian Ortega takes over as new softball coach

Aaron JohnsonSports Editor 

Jillian Ortega has been named the new head coach of the Southern Connecticut State University softball team. Athletic Director (AD) Jay Moran made the announcement to the team earlier in the week at a practice before making it official to the rest of the university.

“We had a senior meeting with the AD,” said senior Sarah Buch. “He told us that he had an idea of who our coach was and then when we started our first practice he told us who our coach was.”

Ortega joins the ranks of Owls’ coaches after spending the last three seasons as the head softball coach at Division III Mitchell College. While at Mitchell, Ortega led the Mariners to 51 victories– including a 36-18 mark in conference play – and also made three appearances in the New England Collegiate Conference Tournament. In a press release, Southern Athletics Director Jay Moran said the program and the university is excited to have Ortega on board.

“Jillian has clearly established herself a rising star in the collegiate softball ranks,” Moran said. “We are excited to have her leading our program on the field, in the classroom and in the community.”

Before her career as the coach at Mitchell, Ortega was the head coach of the New London High School softball team. She said she is excited to come to a Division II school and that she is ready to face any and all challenges.

“It’s a new opportunity to test my abilities coming from a Division III background,” Ortega said. “It’s exciting and rejuvenating.”

A former player herself, Ortega was a key player at UConn during her four-year career with the Huskies. She was a four-year letterwinner and a three-time All-BIG EAST performer at both shortstop and third base. She was a two-time NFCA Academic All-American and earned NFCA All-Region First Team accolades as a sophomore.

Ortega batted .323 for her career while also achieving career numbers that landed her in the Huskies’ record book. She ranks 12th all-time in UConn history with 191 total hits. While her 105 career RBIs are good enough for fifth all-time in school history. Buch said that Ortega’s background as a player was something that drew her and her teammates in immediately.

“We’re all really excited,” she said. “We all know that she played at UConn which is D-I which is the highest level which is a big positive and she keeps the energy up while at practice.”

Although it is her first year, energy and discipline are just two things that Ortega said she wants to bring to the Owls this season.

“Success is a function of effort and discipline,” she said. “Discipline, camaraderie, and passion for the sport to be there every day with an eagerness to work hard and being able to be in the moment just putting your whole self into the moment.”

Ortega has been able to make the transition from player to coach by being able to have a student-athlete’s perspective on leading a team. She said following her time as a student assistant on the UConn coaching staff in 2009-10 she really was able to learn the ins and outs of being a head coach of a team.

“Coming from a student-athletes perspective,” Ortega said. “Student-athletes are well-equipped regardless of who is leading the ship. We want to create an atmosphere of oneness and they were all enthusiastic no matter who’s at the helm.”

As for her first season in the blue and white of Southern, Ortega said that it is NE-10 Championships or bust.

“NE-10 Championships,” she said. “is our goal and anything short of that isn’t enough.”

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