Pitcher from Indiana is ninth recruit for Chattanooga State Lady Tigers

Blythe Golden
Blythe Golden

OK, even if not a single player returns from this year's Chattanooga State softball team, the Lady Tigers now have enough to field a team in 2017.

Pitcher Abbey White from New Palestine, Ind., became the ninth member of the 2016 recruiting class when she and several members of her family visited the local community college on Friday.

"We're working on three or four more - a catcher, another pitcher and a hitter, maybe two hitters," coach Blythe Golden said.

The fourth-year coach coming off back-to-back third-place finishes in the NJCAA Division I national tournament is very high on the 12 freshmen who will be joining a handful of proven sophomores as the 2016 season starts next Friday, and she feels good about the new recruits as well.

"I think we've got a good mix of positions," Golden said.

The new recruits include "quiet, confident" third baseman Aimie Davidson from Ringgold, super-swift outfielders Hannahstaysia Weaver from Pisgah, Ala., and Alyssia Bowen from Tullahoma, another talented outfielder in Emily Burns from Murfreesboro Riverdale, "big hitter" first baseman and left-handed pitcher Sadie Loftis from Siegel, shortstop Niki Slone from Farragut and utility player Megan Buffington, who attends a high school in Italy. Buffington's father works for the Department of Defense and has a residence in Nashville.

Briley Garrett is a right-handed pitcher who signed out of Roane County High.

Davidson has helped Ringgold finish second and third in the Georgia Class AAA state tournament the last two years, and Golden pointed out that she has been in a strong travel-ball program, the Fury Platinum.

"I think she can help us right away," Golden said.

White, Friday's signee, is only 5-foot-3 but throws hard and has a variety of pitches.

"She has great velocity and good movement, and she's very poised and very serious about pitching," Golden said. "She wants to pitch at a high level."

White is about to begin her first and only season at New Palestine, after her family's move from Fort Wayne, but she was all-conference at her old school. She said the curveball and screwball are probably her best pitches, but she also throws "a change, a drop, a rise and a fast."

She talked to defending juco national champion Chipola in Florida as well as four-year schools Taylor, IUPUI and Manchester closer to home, but she has played in tournaments in Chattanooga, has grandparents in Tennessee and said she "always wanted to live in Tennessee."

When she visited Chattanooga State before Christmas, "I felt I was at home," she said. "The coaches and the education here - I felt this was the best place for me."

Contact Ron Bush at rbush@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6291.

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