Cromer Named New MC Softball Coach
05 Sep 2008

by Shaun Tilghman
The Manchester College softball team will soon begin fall workouts and Tracy Cromer will have her first look at many of the players she will be working with as the new head coach.
Cromer joins the Spartan program following seven years of coaching experience at Northwestern College in St. Paul, Minnesota. She served as an assistant coach for two years before taking the reigns as head coach, and she leaves Northwestern with a record of 102-97-2, 28-11 this past season. During her five-year stint as head coach, Cromer led her team to two NAIA regional appearances and recorded three seasons of 20+ wins.
Cromer stated that she has played softball most of her life, including her participation as an undergraduate at Bethel University in Minnesota. During her college career at Bethel, Cromer was named as an All-Conference infielder four times. She received her Master’s Degree in Kinesiology with an emphasis in coaching from Texas Women’s University in 2007.
The Spartans were a young team last year that had to adjust to a late pre-season coaching change and finished with a record of 9-21. The team will be young once again this year, with a majority of the players being freshmen or sophomores, but many of the returning players saw a significant amount of playing time last year.
“I hope that we can build upon that collegiate game experience this season,” said Cromer. “We will need to improve in every area of the game, especially offensively. The team hit just .209 last season, scoring just 80 runs in 30 games.”
Cromer will lead the players through four weeks of fall practices in which “a lot of teaching and fundamental development will take place.” There is no outside competition that takes place during the fall workouts, but the Spartans will be continuing the tradition of the 100-inning game that takes place in October. This unique event consists of an inter-squad scrimmage, a game against the players’ parents, and an alumni game.
“I am excited for the upcoming season, and I do believe we will see improvement from last year,” Cromer said. “The most important thing is going to be bringing the team together, getting them to trust in the process it takes to become successful.”