Jessica Pistole

Jessica Pistole, the architect of one of the most dominant periods for any team in NAIA softball history, completed her 10th season at Southern Oregon University in 2025 with a fourth national championship and a fourth NAIA Coach of the Year award.

SOU has turned dynastic while going 469-138 with Pistole at the helm. When she took over as head coach in 2015, the Raiders had never before qualified for an NAIA World Series. They’ve since advanced seven of the last eight postseasons and are one of three schools in NAIA history to have captured four titles, collecting each of them within a six-year span.

Pistole – who owns a 591-234 overall record in 15 seasons as a head college softball coach – has a .773 winning percentage at SOU, the second-highest among 24 active NAIA coaches with at least 400 wins. Her Raiders have also been on the NAIA Scholar Team list every season, and in 2022-23 she was named the NAIA Coach of Character after receiving the Cascade Conference Coach of Character award in 2019.

Pistole led SOU to its first national title in 2019, finishing 52-8 and defeating powerhouse Oklahoma City in the championship round to garner the Oregon Sports Awards’ George Pasero Team of the Year award.

Months after her return from San Diego, the Raiders were national champs again – setting a school wins record for the fourth consecutive full season at 55-6 after surviving five straight elimination games in a run capped by an extra-innings defeat of rival Oregon Tech. After falling short of the World Series in 2022, they returned in 2023 to outscore their four opponents 35-2 combined, posting the highest run total and top run differential ever among teams that have gone undefeated at the final site. Once again, their final-round victim was Oregon Tech.

Pistole’s latest championship, secured in 2025, was unprecedented for a different reason. After losing their World Series opener, the Raiders became the first team in the tournament’s 44-year history to win seven consecutive elimination games.

Pistole was named the NAIA Coach of the Year after each of the titles. She is a four-time CCC Coach of the Year, taking the award in 2016, ’18, ’19 and ’21. Her teams celebrated conference regular-season titles each of those seasons, were CCC co-champions in 2025, and won three conference tournament championships from 2017-19.