CMU will add softball to its varsity lineup

Carnegie Mellon is set to add another sport to its spring slate.

The university announced Wednesday that it will add softball to its roster of varsity sports, and the program’s inaugural season is scheduled for 2019.

“We have an athletics department strategic plan, we’ve long been interested in expanding our program and the opportunity presented itself with the support of our senior administration and their vision,” athletic director Josh Centor said. “I think it’s really exciting that athletics is valued so significantly at Carnegie Mellon that we would make a substantial investment in the intercollegiate program like this.

The athletic department will begin its search for a head coach for softball this spring, and the 2017-18 academic year will be a recruiting year.

“I’m really excited about adding a traditional team sport in the 2019 spring season,” Centor said. “In our current set of offerings we don’t have what you consider a team sport. We have tremendous sports in the spring in our tennis programs, in our golf programs and track and field programs. But we don’t have that additional team sport.”

The announcement comes three years after CMU launched its women’s golf program in the fall of 2014. This past weekend, the Tartans posted their best threeround score (963), finishing sixth out of 23 Division III teams at the Jekyll Hyde Collegiate.

Centor said the women’s golf program will serve as a model the athletic department will follow in its attempt to build a successful softball program.

“We expect to be a good program,” Centor said. “I think the model with women’s golf shows that we can do it in relatively short order with recruiting on a national level and having a strong leader in the forefront of the program who can get there. And that’s what we expect and intend to do.”

Details on where the softball team will practice and play will be revealed at a later date. CMU does not currently have a baseball team, nor does it have baseball or softball facilities.

“We are in an urban environment, so we will have some facilities challenges ...” Centor said.