Mollie Mitchell: Shining Bright Under Pressure

Ever since she was young Lipscomb catcher Mollie Mitchell knew she wanted to be a coach. The senior is about to graduate from Lipscomb, but she won’t be going very far as the Lady Bison just landed a graduate assistantship with Lipscomb.

After proving herself as a player her first two years Mitchell was able to take on an elevated role on the Lipscomb softball team by calling pitches.

“I’m constantly being a part of the strategy,” Mitchell said. “I feel like a lot of the pressure and a lot of the control at the same time is in my hands and I like that a lot because I feel comfortable with that.”

“I want to be a coach one day and I feel like I get to do that some through calling pitchers and talking with pitchers. I feel like the pitchers trust me a lot.”

One of Mitchell’s favorite parts about calling pitches is working with so many different pitches.

“It’s so much fun,” Mitchell said. “Every pitcher is so extremely different. We’ve had pitchers who want to be in control, we have really slow pitchers and we have Whitney [Kiihnl] who throws really fast.”

She also explains that a lot of calling pitches and being a catcher is about personality management.

“All of the pitchers have different personalities and you have to handle them differently,” Mitchell said.

Mitchell’s pitch calling has certainly worked so far in the tournament. The Lady Bisons had a rough game against the No. 5 Jacksonville Dolphins, but were victorious against the USC Upstate Spartans. Lipscomb knocked USC Upstate out of the tournament after handing them an 8-3 loss.

“With Upstate it’s always a huge rivalry. Beyond that we aren’t ready to be done. We all came out here ready to play as hard as we can and leave it all on the field because no one on this team is ready for this season to end.”

With the win, their season isn’t over. The Lady Bisons will move on to face the winner of the No. 2 Kennesaw State vs. No. 5 Jacksonville contest tomorrow at 3 p.m.