Mizzou softball will honor five seniors in final weekend of regular-season

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

An emotional weekend at the Mizzou Softball Stadium is on deck, as head coach Larissa Anderson and company prepare to honor a group of five seniors: third baseman/shortstop Kara Daly, catcher Julia Crenshaw, designated player Taylor Ebbs, outfielder Mya Dodge and pitcher Jayci Kruse.

Coach Anderson said she can't say enough about this group of seniors, who have fought through a bit of adversity in their final season in Columbia. Coming into the regular-season finale against No. 24 Georgia, Mizzou sits with a 23-29 overall record and a 4-17 mark in Southeastern Conference action. Despite that, Anderson said her seniors led by example, through injuries and all, and never threw in the towel or gave up.

"I think it's the adversity that the two of them, Crenshaw and Daly, have faced with their injuries. I mean, they're leading by example and they easily could have packed it in," Anderson said. "When you're not having the success that you expect on the field, you can say, 'okay, I'm going to turn the page and move on to the rest of my career.' They fought like crazy to get back on the field and that, in itself, is leadership. They're setting the example for those younger players on what it means to to be in the Show-Me state...That's the legacy that they're leaving is how hard that they've worked and what it means to wear that uniform."

You can watch the full press conference with Anderson in the video player below.

The Tigers will head into the final series of the regular-season with a little bit of added motivation to send that senior class with three last wins on their home field. However, the Bulldogs will look to spoil all the festivities, as they still hunt for their first SEC series win of the season.

Coach Anderson said that Georgia has always been a fiercely competitive program and she will expect the Bulldogs to come in with that sort of fire this weekend.

"They know how to win. They're gritty, they're tough, they don't back down. They just keep coming at you and that's how Georgia always has been. I think it's a really good matchup, that it's not your overly dominant pitching the whole way through. It's very, very consistent pitching the whole way through, so it's not like you're just trying to beat just one pitch, you're trying to beat 25 people. It's a strong matchup...We have to take advantage of our opportunities," Anderson said.

Win or lose, Mizzou will honor its seniors, following Friday's 5 p.m. against the Bulldogs. Then, after Saturday's series finale, the group of five will go get their rocks from the newly-built rock M, for the first time in program history.

Although the results on the field have not been what they would have hoped, there's a lot of lessons for the returning and young talent on the MU softball team to take from the graduating senior class. This coming weekend is about those seniors, but it's also an opportunity to look forward to what this group can build on from the 2025 campaign.

During Wednesday's press conference, Anderson hammered home just how close her team has been to grabbing wins in multiple Southeastern Conference series over the course of the season. It just comes down to finding ways to win more consistently, just like the 2024 Super Regional team did one season ago.

"[2024] was very, very successful, but statistically very similar [to 2025]. But, they knew how to win and that's the difference. Like, you might have the same batting average and the same slugging percentage and the same on base percentage, but when players know how to win, then they're getting it at the right times," Anderson said. "This team didn't know how to be able to win, be able to capitalize and being able to take advantage of those opportunities. So, why was last year so successful? Because they made it successful. Why wasn't this year? Because we didn't make it this year. You have to learn from every, single experience that you have to realize, what did I do, what didn't I do, so I can make better adjustments for tomorrow, for next year, for the fall and for their entire future careers. You could have the same exact team back. We could have had the same exact team back from last year, doesn't mean we're going to have the same results. You have to make those adjustments, you have to be better and you have to do more. You can't do what you did before because then you're actually getting worse."

It's been an uplifting fact that her team has been able to keep the joy throughout the season, as Anderson said that is what keeps players around the program for years to come.

She has said she's even taken her own, personal, lessons for the 2025 season, including taking a new look at how she schedules in the non-conference. The Tigers played at least seven teams that have been ranked in the Top-25 this season, before heading into the gauntlet that is the SEC.

"You know, in a lot of the preseason tournaments, I don't have control over who we're playing, but we're going to make some adjustments in our schedule and also some midweeks," Anderson said. "Again, like the schedule was set two years ago, so there was some certain things that were out of our control. But with the conference being so unbelievably competitive as it is [with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma], our non-conference schedule, we have to take a little different look on what our strength of schedule is to put ourselves in a better situation that we're not having to be in this down the stretch, where we're trying to fight to be above .500."

First pitch in game one against No. 24 Georgia is set for 6 p.m. on Thursday, May 1.