PALATKA, Fla. – Determined to defend its title, a local college’s softball team is heading back to its league’s World Series.
The St. Johns River State College Vikings are the defending NJCAA Division II World Series champs and are looking for back-to-back titles.
The Vikings start their quest Saturday morning when they get up at 8 a.m. and hit the road from Palatka to Oxford, Alabama, where the World Series is being played next week.
Oxford is about an hour east of Birmingham, so it’s a 7-hour drive for the team.
The Vikings are hoping to string together five straight wins to claim the World Series title again.
Head coach Joe Pound said this squad set a standard last year. Thanks to experience, he believes the players have a chance to do something special again.
“We returned 13 players from last year‘s team,” Pound said. “All of them had competitive experience and playing time. Just kind of knowing what it takes to get back. They are a super competitive group that fights to the end every time.”
With a chance to win back-to-back NJCAA Division II titles, the Vikings broke the record for regular-season wins with 47 this year.
They won 45 regular-season games in 2024.
Princess Arredondo, Alyssa Vallad and Caylee Elder were all a part of the glory last year and now have a chance to do it all over again.
“Our goal stays the same. We are going to go out and we’re going to play hard,” said Arredondo, who plays catcher and third base. “We know what the expectation is. I know the girls on my team and I are going to work hard, and whatever the outcome is, it is fine because we all know what it took to get here, and we all worked hard to get to this point.”
Vallad, a pitcher and left fielder, acknowledged that many teams get the opportunity to go for back-to-back championships.
“I just want to prove that we deserve what we got last year and continue that legacy,” Vallad said.
Elder, a pitcher and utility player, said this team is special.
“We were a really great group last year, but I think this year we knew that we were good,” Elder said. “The pressure wasn’t really there. We knew what we had to do, working hard each and every day and being competitive on and off the field.”
The Vikings won the World Series last year for the first time in the program’s history thanks to a walk-off two-run home run.
They deservedly received a heroes’ welcome home when they returned to campus with fans cheering them on.
That is something Pound and the players feel they can experience again in a little more than a week.
The coach said he’s been telling his players to “go ahead and leave your mark.”
“To have these sophomores have more than 100 wins in two years, which is pretty hard to do in junior college, it is their willingness and competitiveness to keep pushing through,” Pound said. “They want to do everything they can to win.”
Elder said it’s all coming together for the Vikings again.
“On and off the field, you can just tell the energy is there,” Elder said. “Everybody gets along. There’s never been drama. We just clicked. You can just tell the bond is really strong.”
The Vikings feel that chemistry and camaraderie can propel them back to the top.
For the first time, the Vikings are the No. 1 seed in the tournament. That means they will have a bye for the first day of action next week.
They play their first game at 11 a.m. Central Time on Tuesday, but they must wait to learn who their first opponent will be.
