OKLAHOMA CITY – USA Softball, the National Governing Body of Softball in the United States, announced today the complete coaching staffs for the 2018 USA Softball Women’s National Team (WNT) Program.  Selected from the USA Softball WNT Coaching Pool, the coaches selected will lead their respective teams as they compete in tour stops and international competitions.

At the Japan All-Star Series, the first event for the USA Softball WNT this summer, four-time Olympian Laura Berg (Corvallis, Ore./head coach at Oregon State) will lead the Red, White and Blue and will be joined by assistant coaches Patty Gasso (Norman, Okla./head coach at Oklahoma), Melyssa Lombardi (Norman, Okla./associate head coach at Oklahoma) and two-time Olympian Natasha Watley (Irvine, Calif.).  Berg and Watley were a part of the 2017 USA Softball Junior Women’s National Team coaching staff that led the U.S to a dominating Gold Medal performance at the 2017 World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) Junior Women’s World Championship. 

Both Gasso and Lombardi, who have guided the Oklahoma Sooners to three National Championships in the last five years, will head into their first assignment as coaches for the National Team Program.

For the USA Softball International Cup, Ken Eriksen (Tampa, Fla./head coach at South Florida) will lead the WBSC World Championship roster and will be joined by Howard Dobson (Baton Rouge, La./assistant coach at LSU) and Heather Tarr (Redmond, Wash./head coach at Washington).  All three return to the WNT program after guiding the U.S. to the Gold at last year’s Pan American Championship in the Dominican Republic.  Gasso will lead the second U.S. roster, while Berg, Lombardi and Watley will serve as assistants.

At the WBSC Women’s World Championship, Eriksen will be joined by Dobson, Tarr and Berg in Chiba, Japan.  The U.S. will look to defend their Gold Medal finish at the 2016 World Championship and qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

The coaching staff for the Japan Cup, which will be held in November in Takasaki, Japan, will be announced at a later date.

For more information on the USA Softball National Team program, please visit USASoftball.com.