Brett Quintyne
It’s a great day for some softball, isn’t it? That was my initial question to Ann Pierson the head coach of the Queen Creek Bulldogs softball team. “Yes it is,” she replied as we sat in the bleachers and reacquainted ourselves with one another. The 2024 edition of this team was quite special as they reached the championship game before falling to Xavier in the finale. This year’s team has a different look to it. “Our club is very young. We lost six seniors and four of them were starters. They were big pieces to our program,” Pierson spoke of the talent that has since graduated.
Pierson may only be in her second season leading the Queen Creek program but she certainly has been at very high levels of softball. What is even more impressive is that the root of it has all been Arizona-based. She starred at McClintock High School and then moved on to become the starting shortstop for the ASU Sun Devils for four seasons. Becoming an assistant coach on the Sun Devil staff led her to become the first head softball coach at GCU as she led the Antelopes program for 18 seasons. “They are only going to have a certain amount of time to play the sport. While it feels like a long career it’s a really short window,” the coach explained what she has learned from being in the sport for as long as she has.
The Bulldogs look to be consistently competitive under Pierson and she has some standout sophomores. “(Alessia) Velazquez ,(Emma) Reynolds, and (Aubrey) Chavez got a lot of experience last year playing with those seniors. Starting off the season they weren’t feeling any sort of nerves or anxiousness,” Pierson talked about key pieces for this year’s team. As a team, the Bulldogs are hitting .361 through their first 13 games with Reynolds batting at a .500 clip. This is a very balanced softball team. “Charli is a powerful senior and we have three freshmen who are in the lineup,” Pierson referred to Charli Dixon, who is committed to New Mexico State and batting .444 along with the first-year players who are all hitting a minimum of .345.
Queen Creek recently competed in the fourth annual Hamilton Softball Invitational where they played five games in three days. “It’s a lot of games and they are typically longer than what the kids are typically used to in club ball.” Pierson explained one of the challenges in playing in an in-season tournament. They went 3-2 in those games to raise their season record to 8-5. “The buy-in was really good last year and I feel that’s continued this year,” she spoke of how this team is coming together. Pierson seems to be all in for the Bulldogs and is happy to be part of and contributing to the system. “I’ve got a great a coaching staff that I get to work with and what we are doing isn’t just for this team its for the entire program,” Pierson stressed. Like all teams, time will tell how deep they can go but with Pierson’s guidance and a deep roster it’s not out of the question to see them play at least a handful of games in the month of May.
