Despite Rough Season, Mizzou Softball Remains Optimistic Ahead of SEC Tournament

Mizzou Athletics

Julia Crenshaw despises the end.

At the very least, her words implied such. Mizzou softball had lost to No. 24 Georgia on Saturday, and only one game remained in the regular season. Afterward, head coach Larissa Anderson told reporters what the senior catcher said to the team about Sunday's contest.

"Let's try to have the longest game in the history of Mizzou softball so we don't have to leave this field."

Finality is a thorn that pricks even the strongest of skin. All weekend long, the end of the regular season for the Tigers brought upon those thorns. Each of MU's five seniors — Crenshaw, Kara Daly, Mya Dodge, Taylor Ebbs and Jayci Kruse — were honored in the midst of the sun setting on their college careers.

Those five seniors had been through a lot. Especially Crenshaw and Daly. They weren't just Missouri natives, but were three and four-year starters, respectively. They've not only experienced highs and lows, but have mostly done while, in the long run, remaining emotionally consistent. After all, as the most tenured players on the team, they represented pillars of leadership, which have been especially important for a roster full of underclassmen.

But they were no match for finality. On Senior Day, finality put water into eyes. Memories from years ago to yesterday made arms wrap around backs and faces bury into shoulders.

"You can see the tears," Cierra Harrison said. "They've (the seniors) made a very big impact on this season."

The next day, some of those shoulders carried the five seniors towards the Block M in the berm beyond the fence in center field, a tradition akin to the MU football team's. After the seniors were dropped off, they continued the tradition by picking up a rock from the Block M to keep for themselves.

"Being able to honor our seniors with taking home a rock, they're taking a piece of Mizzou back home with them," Anderson said.

Kruse was one of the teary-eyed. She'd come to Mizzou all the way from Southern California. She stayed at MU all four years, even as she's thrown just under 10 innings in her college career. Through tears, she mentioned Anderson and her teammates, who she called her "best friends", as reasons why she stuck around.

"She's like a mom to us, really," Kruse said of Anderson. "She's the person that we go to with everything. To have a role model like her, it means the world to all of us."

For a brief period of time, the sorrowful, yet fuzzy feelings tossed aside a season that fell way short of expectations. Following an appearance in the Super Regional and a preseason appearance in the top 25, the Tigers finished 25-30 overall. That marked the first time they'd finished the regular season under .500 since 2006, which was also the last time they failed to make the NCAA Tournament. In SEC play, they finished 6-18, their worst conference record by winning percentage (.250) since 2002.

Luckily for the Tigers, they were able to wash away defeat on Sunday, knocking off UGA 1-0 to take their first (and only) SEC series of the season. MU's pitching, which has experienced its fair share of ups and downs this season, was phenomenal. Harrison and Taylor Pannell, two Kansas City-area natives, were royally dominant. Harrison threw six shutout innings, and Pannell shut the door in the seventh. While Crenshaw's which of a lengthy outing didn't come true, the win seemed to be an acceptable remedy.

Pannell only needed 13 pitches to retire the Bulldogs in order, the last two being strikeouts. There was a little extra heat on her pitches; Pannell's fastball neared 70 miles per hour, and the Dawgs weren't the ones barking as a result.

"I don't know what happened," Pannell said, "but I must've found a way to drive off the rubber harder, because I don't think I'd thrown that hard until this weekend."

The Tigers now face their toughest test of the season. The NCAA requires an overall record of at least .500 to be considered for the NCAA Tournament. At 25-30, Mizzou needs to win five games in Athens, Georgia ... the catch, however, is that five wins in the SEC Tournament means lifting a trophy at the end of it. In order to make the NCAA Tournament, the Tigers need to win the SEC Tournament.

In a way, history favors Mizzou. Anderson's crew has made the SEC title game twice in the last three seasons (2022 and 2024). But those teams were a lot better than this year's edition, as they each hosted a Regional. Plus, this year's SEC features 12 teams in D1 Softball's most recent Top 25, nine of which are in the top 16.

This year's SEC Tournament will see MU in a different spot as the conference's second-lowest seed. But as the Tigers sit galaxies from a national seed, which several SEC teams will be fighting for, the new view of the bracket may actually help Mizzou from a mentality standpoint.

"We don't have anything to lose," Anderson said, "so there isn't any pressure on us."

For the players, they're only guaranteed to play one more game this season. As the future is officially stripped of certainty, the fight to prolong of the inevitable begins.

Crenshaw despises the end. And so do the rest of her teammates that don't want her to meet it.

"Play as long as we can for the seniors," Kruse said when asked what Mizzou wants to accomplish at the SEC Tournament. "We know what we can do, and we just want to prove people wrong."