SENIOR SPOTLIGHT: Jessica Owens

"These are friendships that I know I will have for the rest of my life"

Samford senior Jessica Owens was a three-sport athlete when she was growing up. In middle school, she played volleyball, basketball and softball before dropping volleyball when she started high school at Ft. Walton Beach High.

When she moved to Florida in eighth grade, basketball was the first sport she played in her new setting. The sport helped her develop friendships and she eventually went on to the State Final Four three years in a row with her team. However, Owens says that softball has always been her first love.

"Softball is totally my first love," Owens said. "Making the decision to play just softball in college really wasn't that hard. I'd always wanted to play Division I softball. I finally, for once, was going to be able to focus on one sport."

Her love for the sport definitely shows, especially in her success on the field. Owens will leave Samford one of the most successful players to ever have played for the Bulldog program.

Going into the Southern Conference Tournament this week, Owens ranks in the top 10 of five of Samford's 11 career batting records lists. She is the all-time leader in runs, scoring her 100th run against Mercer on April 30. She is the all-time leader in stolen bases (58) while ranking second in hits (81, only trailing the leader by two) and batting average (.317, only three one-thousandths off the lead). She ranks 10th in at-bats with 571 in her career, and in 2007, she tied the school record with 19 stolen bases. She then broke that record in 2008 with 20.

Over her career, she has received many honors for her work on the field. Prior to this season, as Samford moved into the Southern Conference, Owens was named first team Preseason All-Conference. Last season, in the breakout season of her career, she led her team in hitting and was named to the Ohio Valley Conference First Team. The season before, she was named to the OVC All-Tournament team after batting .455 in the three-day tournament.

Halfway through her senior year, Owens encountered an obstacle that she had never had to face before. A broken hand resulted in her being benched for four weeks. "I've never been hurt," Owens said. "I seriously can't think of a time when I sat on the bench...so to sit the bench for the first time in my whole career was really hard. I think the hardest thing for me was making sure that I still stayed up because, to be honest, every time that I step on the field and I can't play, it eats me up." While injured, Owens found herself in a position where she had to take on a new and different role for a while.

"I just had to be vocal and be a positive person for my teammates," Owens said. "I had to encourage them to get it done and get excited when the team did things well. I had to push everything back and still enjoy being out there and watching my teammate fight for what they want because it's what I want. I just had to trust that there is a blessing out of this and stay positive."

Upon returning to the field on April 23 against cross-town rival UAB, Owens went 1-for-2 as the Bulldogs' designated player in a 3-1 win over the Blazers. Since then, she has had a hit in five of the last seven contests including a multiple-hit outing against UAB on May 2.

Upon graduation later this month, Owens will look towards getting a master's degree in Kinesiology. She hopes to get into the coaching field, following in the footsteps of her father.

"I think I'm just one of those players that isn't ready to be done," Owens said. "I just love the game a lot. I've always been around it and I can't see myself not being around it. Maybe it runs in my blood."

Owens' father is the head football coach and athletic director at Ft. Walton Beach High School. This December, as her team was celebrating the end of the first semester of school at a holiday party, she was keeping tabs on her father's football team which was in the state playoffs back home.

"My relationship with my dad is amazing," Owens said. "He definitely helped place that competitiveness in me. He gives me a really good perspective when I play from the coaching side of it...and he's been huge in shaping who I am."

Owens says that the thing she will miss most about her team will be all the time they spend together. Through traveling and playing, there are so many memories that are made that stick with a player forever as well as the bond that comes with compete with a group of people who are fighting towards the same goal.

"These are friendships that I know I will have for the rest of my life."