Rachel Huggins

Title

Softball Assistant Coach
Email

rhuggins@bradley.edu
Phone

309-677-2557

Bradley graduate Rachel Huggins joined the Bradley Softball coaching staff in August 2016 as a volunteer assistant and is entering her fifth year as an assistant coach at her alma mater.

Bradley hit a school record for homers in a season in each of her first two years as the team’s hitting coach with the 2019 squad’s total of 68 homers ranking fourth in Missouri Valley Conference history. In fact, the team has averaged an impressive 0.93 homers per game over the last four season and the squad’s 154 home runs during her four-year tenure as assistant coach are almost 30 more than the total Bradley collected during her four-year playing career (2013-16).

Bradley finished the 2021 campaign with 12 Valley wins to tie for the fourth most conference victories in school history. In addition, the Braves swept the season series from Missouri State for the first time since 2009 and claimed the series from Drake for the first time dating back to 2015. Bradley closed the year with a 13-6 home mark for the team’s most home victories going back to 2009 (16-9).

The abbreviated 2020 campaign was highlighted by the Braves owning the highest team batting average (.304) since 1994. Bradley was averaging 5.43 runs per game through 23 contests and had been scoring 6.25 runs per tilt over the final 16 outings.

In 2019, Bradley was eighth nationally in home runs per game, averaging a MVC season record 1.36 per game. The Braves also ranked 13^th in the country with a school-record .514 slugging percentage in addition to ranking 22^nd nationally in scoring at 5.86 runs per contest to post the highest runs-per-game average in MVC history.

Huggins slugged a then Bradley season record 12 home runs as a senior in 2016, but has since helped coach four individuals who have matched or topped her previous mark. In fact, Allison Apke, who was a Third-Team NFCA All-Mideast Region selection as a junior in 2019, became the only player in program history to hit 10 or more homers in two different seasons under Huggins’ tutelage. Bradley’s career home run leader, Apke is tied for 17^th in MVC history with her 32 career dingers.
Kealia Wysocki joined Apke on the NFCA All-Mideast Region Third-Team in 2019 after crushing a school season record 13 home runs in 2018. Wysocki is second in career homers at Bradley with 29.

Serving as the team’s primary hitting coach after her elevation to assistant coach in 2018, Huggins helped the Braves lead the MVC in runs per game (4.76), doubles, home runs and slugging percentage her first season as a full-time coach. Apke earned First-Team All-MVC honors after tying Huggins’ school record with a conference-best 12 home runs while driving in 44 runs. Former Brave Maria Schroeder became just the third two-time all-region performer in program history (Second-Team NFCA All-Mideast Region) and was a Second-Team All-MVC pick. Schroeder, who hit .354 and scored a Valley-leading 39 runs, finished out her career as one of two players to rank in the top 20 in MVC history in career runs and career RBI. Stacia Seeton also highlighted the 2018 campaign with a Bradley freshman record nine home runs to go with her 11 doubles.

In her lone season as a volunteer assistant in 2017, Bradley had a trio of NFCA All-Mideast performers in first-team selections Kelly Kapp and Caitlyn McCarron along with Schroeder (third team). Kapp and McCarron were both First-Team All-Missouri Valley Conference honorees following record setting campaigns for both, while freshman Kealia Wysocki was a Second-Team All-Valley selection.

A second-team All-MVC performer as a senior, Huggins slugged a school season record 12 home runs as a senior and was named the team’s MVP. Her team-best 39 RBI tied for the fifth-best season total in school history at the time and her .603 slugging percentage as a senior ranked third at the time.

After starting a total of 17 games her first three seasons, Huggins started 47 of 48 games at designated player in 2016 and hit .300 with eight home runs in MVC play in addition to tying the Bradley mark for RBI in conference games by driving in 24 runs.

The Mt. Zion, Ill., native graduated from Bradley in 2016 with a degree in communications (television).