Mustangs win NJCAA DI Softball national championship

OXFORD — After the Northeast Alabama Community College softball program won the Alabama Community College Conference Tournament championship earlier this month, the Mustangs doused head coach Joe Guthrie with water.

But Guthrie wasn't the only one who ended up soaked after NACC's latest championship.

With his team right on his heels, Guthrie led the race to the pond at Choccolocco Park as the newly-crowned NJCAA Division I Softball national champion Mustangs made the park's customary celebratory splashdown following a 7-3 NJCAA World Series finals victory over Temple (Texas) College.

"It's a tradition at this place," Guthrie said. "The water felt good."

Sunday's win completed a storybook second season for NACC softball. NACC president Dr. David Campbell announced in September 2022 that the college would form a softball program, and NACC broke ground on a state-of-the art stadium less than a year later. After an up-and-down inaugural season in the spring of 2025, NACC burst onto the national scene in 2026 en route to winning the national championship.

"This is amazing," said sophomore left fielder Chloe Hatch. "This is what we've dreamed of since we started this program."

The Mustangs finished the season with a 56-4 record. They won their last eight games, sweeping three games en route to winning the Alabama Community College Conference Tournament before going 5-0 in the 20-team, double-elimination 2026 NJCAA Division I Softball World Series. The Mustangs defeated 14th-seeded Gaston (N.C.) 8-0, sixth-seeded Odessa (Texas) 4-3, seventh-seeded Paris (Texas) 9-4 and top-seeded Florida Southwestern State 6-4 before Sunday's championship game win over Temple.

Northeast Alabama became only the second ACCC school to win an NJCAA World Series national championship.

"Back in the fall and in the beginning of the season," said freshman third baseman Marti McCluskey, "we knew something was special about this team."

NACC fell behind 3-0 in the top of the first inning, but the Mustangs came charging back in the third inning, loading the bases with one out after freshman Lorelai Sullivan singled, Hatch walked and sophomore Kiley Weston was hit by a pitch. McCluskey followed with a two-run single to center field to plate Sullivan and Weston to pull NACC within 3-2 before sophomore Francesca Lumpp hit the first pitch she saw down the left field line to drive in Weston with the game-tying run. Two batters later, sophomore Emmorie Burke hit a go-ahead three-run home run to right field to put the Mustangs in front for good. 

"That's one of the biggest moments of my life," Burke said. "I knew it (off the bat). That's the best feeling."

Burke finished with four RBIs after driving in an insurance run for the Mustangs in the fifth with an RBI sacrifice fly that plated Lumpp, who led off the inning with a double.

Lumpp, the World Series MVP, finished 2-for-3 with an RBI while Burke, Hatch, Weston, McCluskey, Sullivan and sophomore Austin McNeece had one hit each. Weston was named the NJCAA World Series' Top Defensive Player while Hatch, McCluskey, Sullivan and freshman Olivia Acuff were named to the NJCAA All-World Series Team.

The seven runs NACC scored in Sunday's championship game were plenty of run support for freshman pitcher Addie Edwards, who did not allow a hit over the final four innings en route to finishing her season with a perfect 34-0 record in the pitching circle. She recorded four strikeouts and was named the NJCAA World Series' Best Pitcher after recording her fifth complete game win of the tournament.

"This is just an amazing feeling. We just all love each other, believe in each other and we just really wanted to show we could do this," Edwards said. "It's just amazing knowing that we've gone from not many people believing in us (because it was just the program's second season) to being the best in the nation."

To Guthrie, it was the fulfillment of what he envisioned the new start-up program could be when he was hired in the summer of 2023.

"We set a goal to be a national powerhouse and to win a national title," Guthrie said. "I'm really proud of our kids. Player-led team, they do all the things you ask of them and more. You never know how it's going to go at tournament time. But when we got here, from the first game on, they just kept hitting another gear. What a special group."