Don Danklefsen

College Softball Program of the Day #015: Trine University Thunder 80 home runs. 436 runs. A .370 team batting average. Trine just put together the best offensive season in program history and played for a national title again. 2027 and 2028 players, if you want to win at the D3 level, this is the standard in Angola, Indiana. The 2026 season by the numbers: - 41-8 overall - MIAA regular-season champions at 14-2 - 5th straight MIAA tournament title, 12th in program history - NCAA Division III national runner-up - Final NFCA poll: No. 2 - 4th championship series appearance in the last 5 seasons - 4th straight 40-win season The offense set program records in on-base percentage (.460), runs (436), doubles (111), home runs (80), RBI (409), total bases (875) and walks (213), with a .659 team slugging percentage. The pitching staff posted a 2.76 ERA with 246 strikeouts in 304.1 innings, and Trine outscored opponents 436-151. The road to Salem went through Earlham, Loras and Rochester in regionals, then Muhlenberg in the super regional, where the Thunder dropped Game 1 and came back to win the next two, including a 3-1 win in 10 innings. At the finals they beat Belhaven twice and Simpson 9-1 before falling to Redlands in the championship series. The stars: junior infielder Tyra Marcum hit .449 with 18 home runs, 60 RBI and a .966 slugging percentage. Senior Debbie Hill hit .430 with 17 homers and 60 RBI, then went 13-3 with a 1.93 ERA in the circle. Senior outfielder Emma Lee hit .403 with 17 homers, 61 RBI and 18 steals. Senior Karley Trine hit .417 with 60 hits. Sydney Adolfson went 14-1 with a 2.72 ERA, and freshman Kami Arnett went 7-2 with 64 strikeouts and made the All-Tournament team at the finals with Marcum. Head coach Donnie Danklefsen has led the program since 2004 and guided it through the move from NAIA to NCAA Division III. He is 725-214 (.772), passed 700 career wins this spring, and has won national championships in 2023 and 2025 with runner-up finishes in 2022 and 2026. His staff was named NFCA Division III Coaching Staff of the Year in 2023 and 2025. The staff around him: pitching coach Dennis Smith, assistant Zech Huston, who works with the outfielders and runs data analytics after stops at Webber International and Western Michigan, and assistant Alexis Michon, who pitched for Trine on both national title teams. @TrineSoftball @TrineAthletics @MIAA1888 @CoachD_TUSB @CoachHustonTUSB @General_TUSB National Softball Recruiting | @NatlSBRecruit 2027 and 2028 players and parents, DM us "INFO" and we'll help you build a real list of schools and a plan to get seen.

🥎Congrats to @TrineSoftball on finishing as @NCAADIII Softball National Runners-Up. @TrineAthletics staved off elimination 5 times during their national tournament run, advancing to the championship series for the 4th time in 5 seasons.

Come learn from last season leader in home runs and slug percentage!

In early 1986, Bo Jackson was the best athlete in America, and everyone knew it. He'd just won the Heisman Trophy. He was hitting over .400 for Auburn's baseball team. NFL scouts were already calling him a generational talent. So when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, holding the No. 1 pick in that year's draft, wanted to bring him in for a visit, owner Hugh Culverhouse sent his private jet and promised Jackson the trip wouldn't cost him anything. It cost him everything. The NCAA ruled the flight an improper benefit. Jackson's college baseball career was over before he ever agreed to play a single down for Tampa Bay. He believed it wasn't a mistake he believed it was a setup, a way to force him onto the football field by taking baseball away from him. So when the Buccaneers drafted him first overall anyway, he told them plainly: don't bother. They offered him $7.6 million over five years the richest rookie contract in NFL history at the time. He turned it down and signed a minor league baseball contract worth a fraction of that, choosing bus rides and small crowds over a team that had lied to him. People called it irrational. Jackson didn't see it that way. Some things, he believed, mattered more than money. A year and a half later, on his 25th birthday, he stepped onto the field for the Los Angeles Raiders a team that let him play both sports against a Seattle linebacker who'd publicly promised to shut him down. Jackson took a handoff, stiff-armed a defender to the turf, and outran the entire Seattle defense for a 91-yard touchdown that carried him straight into the stadium tunnel. He finished the night with 221 rushing yards, a record that still stands today. Then baseball season came, and he did it all over again playing outfield and hitting a 448-foot home run in the same All-Star Game, on his way to being named MVP. To this day, Bo Jackson remains the only athlete in American professional sports history named an All-Star in two major leagues. His career ended earlier than anyone wanted, cut short by injury in 1991. But the story people still tell isn't really about the speed or the records. It's about the year he refused to let anyone buy back his integrity and turned out to be right. -Fabulous Lovers Of Weird Everything