This is fantastic news for the University of Alabama softball team as all 7 seniors from the class of 2020 will be returning for the 2021 season after the coronavirus ended their season early.
We'll see you next year at Rhoads Stadium🥎
All of us🤝#BamaSB #RollTide pic.twitter.com/hqMhBiWcOM— Alabama Softball (@AlabamaSB) May 4, 2020
Alabama, who was 14-8 on the season before their season was abruptly ended when the coronavirus took the world by storm. Although the Tide opened the season as the No.1 team in the country, Alabama struggled to remain consistent in several different series.
Alabama softball’s class of 2020 included Sarah Cornell, Alexis Mack, Claire Jenkins, Krystal Goodman, Bailey Hemphill, Elissa Brown, and Taylor Clark.
In late March, the NCAA voted to allow schools to provide spring-sport student-athletes an additional season of competition and an extension of their period of eligibility due to the impact of spring sports because of the coronavirus.
This is what the NCAA had to say regarding this decision:
“Members also adjusted financial aid rules to allow teams to carry more members on scholarship to account for incoming recruits and student-athletes who had been in their last year of eligibility who decide to stay. In a nod to the financial uncertainty faced by higher education, the Council vote also provided schools with the flexibility to give students the opportunity to return for 2020-21 without requiring that athletics aid be provided at the same level awarded for 2019-20. This flexibility applies only to student-athletes who would have exhausted eligibility in 2019-20.
Schools also will have the ability to use the NCAA’s Student Assistance Fund to pay for scholarships for students who take advantage of the additional eligibility flexibility in 2020-21.
Division I rules limit student-athletes to four seasons of competition in a five-year period. The Council’s decision allows schools to self-apply waivers to restore one of those seasons of competition for student-athletes who had competed while eligible in the COVID-19-shortened 2020 spring season
The Council also will allow schools to self-apply a one-year extension of eligibility for spring-sport student-athletes, effectively extending each student’s five-year “clock” by a year. This decision was especially important for student-athletes who had reached the end of their five-year clock in 2020 and saw their seasons end abruptly.
“The Council’s decision gives individual schools the flexibility to make decisions at a campus level,” said Council chair M. Grace Calhoun, athletics director at Penn. “The Board of Governors encouraged conferences and schools to take action in the best interest of student-athletes and their communities, and now schools have the opportunity to do that.”
The Council also increased the roster limit in baseball for student-athletes impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the only spring sport with such a limit.”
With these 7 Alabama seniors returning plus the new talent coming to Tuscaloosa, Alabama has an incredible chance to return to the WCWS once again, and may open up as the No. 1 team again in the country next season.
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