NAIA SOFTBALL - Warner bounces back, finishes with strong season at Columbia

As important as the arm and shoulder obviously are to a softball pitcher, the lower body can be just as important.

For Addison Warner, a freak injury to her ankle last winter led to a lengthy recovery and a lost junior season at Columbia College, an NAIA university in Columbia, S.C.

But the 2021 graduate of Gilman High School persevered and closed her softball career on her terms this spring.

Warner emerged as the ace of the pitching staff for the Koalas, who went 2031 with a young squad this season. Warner made a team-high 24 starts and 26 appearances in the circle, posting a 10-10 record with a respectable 3.81 earned run average in 133.2 innings pitched and 11 complete games.

Warner reached her goal of 100 strikeouts with 111. She worked around 61 walks and 118 hits while allowing 69 earned runs.

While the ankle is now 100%, Warner did much of that work while fighting shoulder pain in the second half of the season.

“I definitely did what I was hoping to do,” Warner said from South Carolina in a May 16 interview. “After coming off of that injury that had put me out for a whole year, that was pretty tough. I didn’t know how I was going to back off of that. I ended up doing what I needed to do while working through a shoulder injury as well. I have to get that fixed this summer. I ended up with a torn labrum, so I was pitching through some tough pain. But I was very happy with how I ended it. It was a very good year to end it. I got my 100 strikeouts, we made the conference tournament and that’s what my goal was.”

Warner landed at the South Carolina school of about 1,500 students while looking for a fresh start following a sour end to her two-year stint at Madison College. But the high hopes she had entering the Koalas’ 2024 season were dashed during her holiday break.

“I was home visiting for winter break and ended up slipping on some ice and tore my ankle up pretty good,” Warner said. “I ended up having surgery done on that. That put me on crutches for six weeks and then a boot for another six, so I was out the whole season. It happened a day before New Year’s, about three days before I was supposed to drive back down here.”

The rehab took her well into last summer. Warner said she didn’t throw a pitch until the end of July or early August.

“I kinda just worked through it during our fall season, which is a scrimmage season kind of thing,” Warner said. “I was really just using that fall season to get back to full strength. I was struggling mentally. I’ve never had to deal with an injury like that before. It was tough. But finally, in our last weekend, we played in a little tournament and I had like 16 strikeouts and I was like, ‘OK, I’m feeling like myself again and back to where I need to be.’ It was a very good way to end that fall season and then come into our regular season feeling like myself again.”

Warner made her Columbia debut Feb. 1, pitching six innings in a 3-1 loss at Brewton-Parker, Ga. Her first win came a week later in a 3-1 win over Point in the last game of Columbia’s Cola Classic. She allowed just two hits and two walks while striking out seven in seven innings. Warner got her first shutout on Feb. 23, a 4-0 win over Lincoln University (Pa.). She again allowed just two hits and struck out seven.

Warner may have been at her best on March 14 when she and the Koalas beat Brenau (Ga.) 4-2 in game one of a doubleheader. Brenau came in possessing the nation’s number-one ranked offense in the NAIA. She struck out four, walked three and allowed five hits in seven innings.

“That was a high point for me realizing that ‘OK, I can do this,’” Warner said. “That was a week or two after we started conference play, so that was a really good feeling realizing I can shut down hitters like that.”

Warner was named the WinWon Appalachian Athletic Conference Pitcher of the Week after shutting out Montreat (N.C.) 2-0 on three hits and nine strikeouts.

“For our school in the conference we don’t get noticed very much, so it was really cool to get an award like that,” Warner said.

Warner hit the 100-strikeout milestone during the team’s Senior Night April 19. She pitched four innings in a game Columbia won 7-5 over Paine College (Ga.) on a three-run walk-off homer by its second-team All-AAC infielder Aliyah Crawley.

Warner’s last two outings came in the AAC tournament. In the opening round on April 28, the ninth-seeded Koalas lost 2-0 to eighth-seeded Columbia International University on a sixth-inning two-run homer. Warner struck out three, walked none and allowed five hits in six innings. She pitched the next day in Columbia’s 8-6 win over Truett McConell (Ga.) in the elimination bracket, going 3.2 innings. The Koalas were eliminated in their next game, 6-1, by Bryan (Tenn.).

Warner said she found Columbia College basically by doing a Google search of southern NAIA schools. She started with South Carolina and Columbia came up first. She considers herself lucky that’s where she ended up.

Warner actually does have a year of eligibility remaining because of her medical redshirt year. But, after graduating May 2 with a business administration degree concentrating on marketing and starting her job search, she said her softball days are done. She finished as a member of the AAC’s All-Academic Softball Team.

“I think (Madison) was a good place for me to start,” she said. “But it ended up with the coaches not being my biggest fans. My freshman year was awesome. I think I had the second-most innings as a freshman. The second year I just got kind of pushed to the side.

“My biggest thing was just my confidence,” Warner added. “That was something I always struggled with. I had that big year during my senior year of high school. But being the ace so much pressure gets put on you as a pitcher. You just have to be confident in yourself and know that you can do it. I had that in my freshman year at Madison and then kind of lost it a little bit my sophomore year. Then I came in here and I was surrounded again by a team who believed in me, even more than I did myself. It’s about making sure you surround yourself with the right people that are giving you that confidence. It was a you know how to do it, just go do it kind of thing.”