Softball Team Sees Change, Eight Straight Wins

On April 25, Tonja Braxton was relieved of her duties as head coach of the Howard University softball team.

“We can’t discuss human resources issues, we just felt that it was time to make a change,” said Dwight Datcher, Athletic Director for Howard University.

Associate Athletic Director Dexter Harris has stepped in and volunteered to be coach of the softball team while they attempt to find a new coach for the squad.

“We’re looking to get a new coach as soon as possible,” Datcher said. “Word travels fast we are sure people know about this opening.”

Since the coaching change the lady Bison have won eight straight games. During this stretch they jumped from fifth in their division to first and captured the regular season MEAC title.

“I’ve been doing this for 30 years and you never know what is going to motivate a team. Ms. Braxton recruited all of these girls. I am going to give Dexter a little credit for the winning streak but not all of the credit because he didn’t recruit any of these girls to Howard,” said Datcher.

Before the team began its winning streak they had lost five straight games. The game that turned their season around was a come from behind win against the Morgan State Bears.

“The biggest thing in this turnaround has been positive reinforcement. The comeback against Morgan went a long way to help their confidence,” Harris said in an interview with howard-bison.com

Junior softball player Courtney Young has batted .520 during the winning streak and driven in 13 runs. Junior Nicole Saez has batted .577 during the streak and driven in 22 runs.
“We’re peaking at the right time and we’re looking forward to competiting for the MEAC title,” said Sondra Jones, member of the softball team.

Today the team will be wrapping up the MEAC tournament, which concludes today at the Ormond Beach Sports Complex in Florida. The lady bison finished the season with a 20-26 overall record and a 9-4 in conference play. To see how the Lady Bison fared in tournament play log onto howard-bison.com.

3 comments

Your name

Mon Aug 17 2009 00:33

ms braxton also won a meac championship for the university you haven't done anythoing in basketball or football but the coach keeps their jobs need to get rid of the athletic director.

class of '89

Tue May 12 2009 10:52

as an alumni who played baseball in the early '90's and has a preteen daughter playing travel softball in the South, i find it curious that there are so many recruits from the west coast. sure, it is a powerhouse region, but there is an amazing amount of talent between georgia, alabama and florida. give these east coast and southern young ladies a chance to play at the mecca! have ya seen famu's and cookman's teams? better yet, the showcase events held in the southeast are full of young black women who play elite softball whose parents attended hbcu's and are looking to advance their lives by attending their parents' alma maters. finally, my wife took my 11 year old daughter to tour the h.u. campus while braxton was a coach. she was embarrassed for the sloppy, shoddy practices. she even mentioned that she wouldn't want to play for a team like that. out of the mouths of babes...

former student and employee of Howard

Sat May 9 2009 22:27

The coach was not only fired from the team, but also the University. This article refused to mention that, probably because it should not have happened. Tonja brought great change to the academic environment at Howard and it's a shame that the staff and faculty don't know what to do with good staff when they have it!

In addition, the title should read, "...Eight Straight Wins", not "winnings".

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