Jennifer Haltom is wondering how she will come to replace the one player she entrusted with doing everything for the Mansfield softball program.
“Hailey Morse is one of the hardest working, most versatile players I’ve ever had,” Haltom, wrapping up her eighth season as head coach of the Lady Tigers, told Texas Scorecard. “She’s so athletic, a four-year starter who filled any hole we had at every position. Her mentality is whatever the team needs she’s ready and willing to do it.”
Now headed to Texas A&M Corpus Christi on an athletic scholarship, Haltom is hoping Morse’s spirit will live on around the program and in the locker room.
“She’s just a battler,” she said of the catcher, third baseman. “The kind of a player a coach loves having and instantly comes to rely on to help keep everything afloat.”
Morse leaves Mansfield with the school’s all-time highest batting average at an astonishing .498. She also leads the school in career doubles at 44.
On the strength of Morse’s hot bat, the Lady Tigers finished the year at 24-9, including a pair of five game winning streaks where they outscored the opposition by a cumulative score of 11-13.
“Between her and Reagan Hukill we’ve got a ton of offense that we’ll need to try and replace come next season,” Haltom added. “I was talking to all the coaches recently and we all agreed as much as the numbers and production they put up our biggest job going forward will be to try to replace the personality they brought to the team. For both of them, it was all about the team more than any individual accomplishments. They just wanted things to be good for team.”
