Lansing Community College softball returns to NJCAA World Series for first time in 5 years
Lansing Community College softball coach Marc Kibby has been waiting a while to have this sort of team again — one with the leadership and sweat equity to compete on a national scale.
The Stars are about to find out if they’re ready to do so. For the first time since 2018, they’re back at the NJCAA Division II World Series, beginning play at 2 p.m. Tuesday as the 12 seed against No. 5 Copiah-Lincoln (Mississippi) in Spartansburg, South Carolina. The double-elimination tournament runs through Saturday.
Kibby and his staff had LCC’s program rolling pre-pandemic, making three straight trips to the World Series from 2016 though 2018, before having to rebuild the roster and endure the growing pains of a seeing a freshman class take its lumps and become a determined sophomore group.
The Stars seem to have it this season. They’re 34-18 and finished 25-5 in conference play. They went 33-5 after coming back to Michigan following a brutal schedule through the South in March. LCC won its regional to advance to the World Series by beating Kalamazoo Valley, 7-4, and then Oakland Community College, 21-3, on May 12 and 13, respectively.
“That’s where I give the credit to my sophomores,” Kibby said of his six second-year players. “As freshmen last year, they experienced the regionals and that’s as far as we got. Their leadership and the understanding of what it takes to be to be winners, they have been real leaders for us. … This year, they knew what to expect.”
That group includes four regulars in the lineup — Shelby Warner (Eaton Rapids), Jillian Harris (Hudsonville), Peyton Lehman (Bath), Raygan Williams (Bluffton, Indiana) — as well as pitcher Lydia Davenport (Ithaca) and ace Morgen Ahlfeld (Fountain).
Warner’s .441 batting average leads the team, followed by Harris at .410. Lehman (.359) and Williams (.349) are near the top, as well. Ahlfeld has thrown 164-plus innings and has an era of 3.07.
“She is one of the best I've had here at LCC,” Kibby said of Ahlfeld. “She took her lumps last year being a freshman pitcher, playing the schedule that we do in the spring when we go down south. … She has a rise, a curve and a change-up and she has just been stellar on the mound for us.”
At the plate, what makes LCC’s lineup difficult to deal with, Kibby said, is its balance. All of its regulars have at least four of the team’s 71 home runs, with freshmen Paige Antcliff (Beal City) and Madison Travis (Farwell) leading the way with 14 and 13, respectively, rather than relying on a lineup with a couple players in the mid-to-high 20s and not much punch the rest of the way.
“You can’t pitch around one person because everybody in our lineup can hit the ball,” Kibby said.
At the World Series, they’ll run into other teams with those qualities. Kibby and most of his staff have been through it together. But none of the players have.
“We're trying to get them to understand the focus that they need to compete down here,” Kibby said Monday. “I really do feel real good about this team. If they can hold their nerves down, I think this team could be something special.
“Every once in a while, you have those teams that you know there's just something there. This is one of them.”
Contact Graham Couch at gcouch@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @Graham_Couch.
This article originally appeared on Lansing State Journal: Lansing Community College softball returns to NJCAA World Series
