(Tucson, AZ) Kim Doss
Rylee Pierce spent the first three years of her college career playing in the SEC for the Missouri Tigers. The Visalia, California native had a good career playing in one of the toughest softball conferences, but decided to move on after the Tigers parted company with their coach just before the 2018 season started. Columbia’s loss will be Tucson’s gain, as Pierce announced her transfer to the University of Arizona today on Twitter. Pierce will be a senior this upcoming year.
Pierce was a Second-Team All-SEC performer during her junior season at Missouri. She put up career highs in batting average (.318), runs scored (37) and home runs (8), all while facing off against tough pitching in conditions far less favorable than the dry desert air of Tucson. When batting against conference foes, she led her team in both RBI and runs scored. She fared well against both right-handed pitching (.303) and southpaws (.429).
On defense, Pierce was strong at first base for the Tigers. In her 2017 sophomore season, she was top 10 in the SEC with 325 total putouts. That followed a freshman season when she had 406, while only committing six errors.
The question for Pierce is where she will fit in on the field and in the line-up. Last year, Arizona moved Alyssa Palomino to first base from outfield after her second ACL injury. Palomino was a first-team NFCA All-American after the move. She led the PAC-12 in home runs with 19, as well as leading the Wildcats in batting average (.363), slugging percentage (.750) and on-base percentage (.446). In the post-season, North Dakota State was so concerned about Palomino that they walked her to load the bases in front of Jessie Harper, who had 18 home runs on the season.
Arizona does have questions in the outfield and at designated player. Ashleigh Hughes started in center field most of the season before breaking her hand against Arizona State. She has graduated. Aleah Craighton, who played all three outfield positions at various points of the season, is also gone after her only season in Tucson. Palomino could conceivably be moved back to the outfield, although conventional wisdom was that she was moved to first base because of her history of knee injuries.
While Ivy Davis seemed to have settled in as the designated player late in the season, Arizona shuffled players in and out of that position for much of the year. Davis has played multiple positions over her softball career, but is primarily a middle infielder. In high school, she played second base and pitched. Before that, she was a shortstop. She could be moved to a number of positions on the field to accommodate someone else at DP.
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Arizona head coach Mike Candrea has shown that he is willing to move his players around to accommodate the talent on the roster and player development. His players have also demonstrated that they are willing to learn new positions as things change. How those attributes are used to make room for Pierce will be worked out in practice, as well as during fall ball and the early part of the 2019 season.
For the second straight season, Arizona will welcome transfers from a program that saw a coach let go over concerns about the direction of that program rather than wins and losses. In January, Arizona welcomed Craighton and Alyssa Denham from the University of Louisiana-Lafayette after their coach was fired amid concerns raised by some of his players.
According to USA Today, former University of Missouri coach Ehren Earleywine had been the subject of a university investigation in May of 2016, but many of his players stood up for him at that time, threatening to boycott the season if the coaching staff was replaced. In January 2018, just two weeks before their first game, Missouri announced that they were going to part ways with Earleywine prior to the end of his contract. They paid him for the final few months but removed him from his role as head coach. Much like events in Lafayette, a few players decided to leave after this decision. In addition to Pierce, Missouri lost shortstop Braxton Burnside to Arkansas.
