Shirey a huge success in first year at Fayetteville

Taking over a program searching for stability the previous four seasons, Jason Shirey came on board at the right time.

In just his first season as the head softball coach at Fayetteville, Shirey turned the Lady Bulldogs around and into a state title contender, making him the obvious choice for the Northwest Arkansas Times ’ City School Girls Coach of the Year for 2004.

The Lady Bulldogs finished the 2003 spring season 26-7 overall which included a 12-2 AAAAAWest Conference record and also the league title. Fayetteville then marched on to the semifinals of the Class AAAAA State Tournament, where they lost a 4-3 heartbreaker to North Little Rock.

The list of accomplishments the Lady Bulldogs compiled in Shirey’s first year goes on and on, including a school record for victories, their firstever AAAAA-West softball championship and advancing to the semifinals of the fast-pitch state tournament for the first time. At one time during the season, the Lady Bulldogs had won 13 consecutive games and had won nine straight before the season-ending loss. "I knew the players had it in them," said Shirey. "I knew they were used to the competition. We just worked hard on getting them to believe in themselves and to go out and give themselves a chance to win every time."

Not a bad first year. In fact, it was Shirey’s first head coaching job after being an assistant coach the previous nine years. Shirey was an assistant softball coach at the University of Southwestern Louisiana — now Louisiana-Lafayette — for three years before coming up to Fayetteville and serving four years as an assistant coach for the University of Arkansas softball program. Shirey worked as a volunteer assistant coach at Farmington for two years before taking over the Fayetteville program in the summer of 2003.

After the Lady Bulldogs worked hard during the offseason, they began with a 5-0 win at Huntsville and then posted a 3-2 victory over Bentonville, then the defending AAAAA-West champion. Fayetteville lost two before reeling off 13 wins in a row. That’s when the Lady Bulldogs began to get the feeling that 2004 was their year. "They worked extremely hard from lifting weights in the fall to those early Saturday morning workouts in February," said Shirey. "I couldn’t be more proud of the girls and what they accomplished [last spring]."

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Info on Jason Shirey's UL career