South Carolina adds new assistant to softball coaching staff

South Carolina softball will be adding Zack Parsons to its coaching staff for the upcoming 2025 season.

Parsons joins a staff that includes Katie Browder (associate head coach) and Jody Davidson (assistant coach). Parsons will be working with the Gamecocks’ pitching staff.

Full press release from South Carolina athletics

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Head softball coach Ashley Chastain announced the addition of Zack Parsons as an assistant coach for the upcoming season for the Gamecocks.

“Pitching is the centerpiece of success on the field,” Chastain said. “To bring in Zack as a pitching coach and support our bullpen is exciting for our program. He has a ton of great experience developing pitchers and will fit in nicely with our systems. He is extremely smart and relatable for our pitching staff, and he will add so much value in transforming our pitchers to the next level. He came highly recommended by many great coaches in our game, and we are grateful he chose to come on board with us.”

Parsons most recently was on the coaching staff at Murray State, starting as a graduate assistant in the fall of 2020 before being promoted to assistant coach in 2022.

Under Parsons, the Murray State pitching staff reached unprecedented heights. Over the last four seasons, Racer pitchers recorded the four lowest ERAs in program history. The team set multiple program records during the 2022 season, most notably a program record 1.46 ERA, which also ranked second in Division I that season. MSU also posted a program-best .194 opponent batting average, 1.22 walks per seven innings, and strikeouts per seven innings with 6.37.

Parsons was instrumental in Hannah James being named the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) Pitcher of the Year in 2022. Under his coaching, James would go on to earn National Fastpitch Coaches Association First Team All-Region honors in 2023, in addition to All-Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) First Team and MVC All-Tournament Team honors. She was also named to the NFCA All-Region Second Team in 2022. He also coached Jenna Veber, who was named to the All-MVC First Team this past season and the All-OVC Second Team in 2022.

Prior to MSU, Parsons began his collegiate coaching journey at Asbury University where he was named the interim head coach for the 2019 season before having the interim tag removed for the 2020 season.

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