Knoxville, TN. – At the beginning of the NCAA softball season if you look at each team’s player-to-watch list the so-called softball pundits, other than those in Indiana, didn’t have the Indiana infielder Taryn Kern on their list. But the young lady from San Jose, California has proven everyone wrong and not to overlook the talent that Hoosiers Head Coach Shonda Stanton brings in.
Stanton, the all-time winningest coach at Marshall with 560 victories, knows talent and knows how to recruit. And she knows how to win. So while other schools may have overlooked Kern, Stanton didn’t. And the dividends have paid off.
On a rainy Saturday afternoon in the Knoxville NCAA Championship Regionals, Kern added another record to the great book she’s been rewriting all season. She drilled a ball deep over the centerfield fence at Sherri Parker Lee Stadium against the Lady Vol’s top pitcher. That gives her 23 on the season tying the 2013 freshman record set by Sierra Romero of Michigan. She is now just 1 home run shy of tying the overall Big Ten single-season record set in 2008 by Angelena Mexicano of Illinois.
Earlier this season on April 7th Kern hit her 17th homer of the season against Minnesota when she launched a 3-run homer at the Gophers Jane Sage Cowles Stadium breaking the Hoosier single-season home run record set by IU Hall of Famer and Olympian Michelle Venturella in 1994.
Kern leads the Hoosiers with a .413 batting average and is 26th in the nation with her batting average. She also is also in the top 50 players in the NCAA with hits. She is tied for second in the nation with 23 home runs and will look to improve on that today as well as help lead her team to victory as they will have a rematch with Louisville in the NCAA World Series Regionals.
