HALL OF FAME FEATURE: Taylor Dix Paschal '16

Taylor Dix Paschal ’16 felt destined to have an amazing sophomore season. Then a thumb injury derailed that promising 2014 campaign. While it was a crushing blow at the time, the former Averett University softball standout admits that setback helped her change her approach the following season. The end result? She led the nation in batting average as the Cougars’ softball program put itself on the map to highlight an amazing career that now has Paschal headed into the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame.

“The thumb injury was devastating,” Paschal recalled. “To be completely honest, as far as my swing, I felt more intact my sophomore year than I did my junior year. That’s what’s even more upsetting. I think I got through eight games and they were the eight hardest teams we were going to play and I just felt locked in already. We had gotten through the hard part and it was about to get easier. I remember that feeling and then the thumb thing happened. So when I came back, I really wanted to get back to there and I knew it was going to take a whole lot of work. I would have never imagined my junior year I would have gotten to where I got to. 

A starter since arriving on campus as a freshman, Paschal remained involved while being sidelined her sophomore season. Looking back, it offered her a new perspective that she believes ultimately helped her moving forward.

“I read a lot of books,” she said. “When you get hurt, you tend to sit back and see a lot of things I feel like you don’t see when you are playing. That whole sophomore year I spent the year analyzing everything I could and absorbing what I could. I really took a whole different approach and hoped the results would show. Luckily, they did.”

Entering her junior season, Paschal decided to take a new approach at the plate. She said she never looked at a single stat for the entire regular season.

“Through the whole season my junior year, I never once looked at a batting average or a slugging percentage or anything,” Paschal said. “Then you have my good friend Mary Beth (Smith) who is all about numbers and crunching numbers as soon as we got on the bus. Every day, she would say, ‘OK, Taylor, just let me tell you.’ And I was always like, ‘No, I don’t want to know. I’ve made it this far, I don’t want to look.’ And she would say, ‘I don’t think you realize …’ but I’d say, ‘No, I have no idea. I don’t want to talk about it. Don’t tell me.’”

What Smith wanted to tell her was that Paschal was crushing it at the plate. Truth be told, the whole team was. Averett ended up leading the nation in NCAA Division III with a .385 team batting average in 2015. Leading the country individually was Paschal. Finally, her dad Ronnie — an assistant coach with the Cougars — delivered the good news.

“I remember sitting down with my dad at the end of the regular season and that was the first time I had looked at my batting average,” Paschal remembered. “When he showed it to me, I literally had no idea it was what it was. It was a really pleasant surprise, of course. And when we were talking, he let me know that it was first in the nation. I thought, ‘There’s no way!’”

Paschal ended up hitting .540 that season, which not only led the country but also set the USA South Athletic Conference single-season record for batting average.

That 2015 season was one for the ages not only for Paschal but also for the Cougars. Averett began the season 25-0-1 and won its first 15 conference games. The Cougars jumped as high as No. 13 in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Top 25, set multiple conference records and won the regular season crown. Although the Cougars fell short in the conference tournament, their success during the regular season didn’t go unnoticed. Averett earned an at-large berth into the NCAA Tournament.

“I remember that year in particular because we put up so many runs each game and we were just having a blast,” Paschal said. “We were throwing up eight, nine, 10 runs against good teams. To get the results and being good enough to have slipped up in the conference tournament but had put ourselves in a good enough position to still make it to the NCAA Tournament was just unreal.”

Averett finished that 2015 season with a program-best 35-5-1 overall record and a 22-1 mark in conference play. The Cougars also won an NCAA Tournament game for the first time in program history.

“That team we had is going to be a tough team to top, I feel like,” Paschal said. “When you look at our lineup, we had so many athletes that were easily Division I-caliber athletes but we all happened to land at Averett and put all of our success together. Of course, I am biased, but it’s going to take a dang good team to top what we had. We had every aspect covered completely. Again, I’m biased but I feel like that’s one of the strongest teams that has ever come through Averett’s program.”

The experiences of that season with her teammates are among her fondest memories during her four seasons at Averett. So was getting to share it with her dad, who was on the coaching staff for it all.

“With my dad involved, that was another aspect that I feel like made it special for me,” Paschal said. “To be able to experience all of my greatest feats as a team member and an individual player, to have him by my side to experience it with him made it a little more special for sure.”

Paschal finished her career as one of the top hitters in Averett softball history while playing for the Cougars from 2013-16. The 2015 USA South Conference Player of the Year and Virginia Sports Information Directors (VaSID) State Player of the Year was named both a 2015 NFCA All-America Second Team selection and an Academic All-America Second Team selection during the memorable 2015 campaign. In 138 career games, she finished her career with a .437 batting average, which ranks second in program history at the time of her induction. She also ranks fourth all-time in career runs batted in (117) and fifth in both career hits (166) and runs scored (109). The middle infielder from Danville, Virginia, also holds the career and season record for on-base percentage, as well as the single-season marks for slugging percentage (.790) and doubles (22). 

Paschal earned USA South All-Conference First Team honors three times (she missed more than half of her sophomore season with an injury). She earned all-state honors twice and USA South All-Tournament Team recognition once, as well as Academic All-District, VaSID Academic All-State and USA South Academic All-Conference accolades during her four seasons with the Cougars. 

Set to be inducted into the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame on Oct. 8 during Homecoming, Paschal feels like it has come full circle for her. She remembers being invited as a student-athlete to attend the Averett Athletics Hall of Fame ceremony by then softball head coach Bren Taylor, who was allowed to bring one player to the event.

“I remember Bren sitting there with me and was like, ‘This is going to be you one day,’” Paschal recalled. “I just kind of brushed it off like, ‘Oh, she’s just saying that because I’m the one who got to come with her.’ I didn’t ever really put a whole lot of thought into it. So when I got that call, it packed a really powerful punch. I really was not expecting that whatsoever and it was definitely a huge surprise. I did get a little emotional because everybody wants to eventually be in the Hall of Fame, and they fact that I was chosen was a surreal moment.”

Taylor saw Paschal had those “Hall of Fame” qualities from the start after recruiting the local standout to Averett.

“She’s a natural athlete and was the leader of our team even when she was a freshman,” Taylor said. “She did have that injury, and even through that injury she was a captain from the sidelines. I knew she was destined to do great things and she really did her junior and senior year.”

Finding out that she also will be inducted alongside her Averett teammate Smith is another bonus for Paschal. The two have been “attached at the hip” for more than a decade after playing high school softball together at nearby Bartlett Yancey, playing together at Averett once Smith transferred in for her final three seasons and now continue to be teammates on a women’s slow-pitch softball team.

“It’s a really cool honor to be able to enjoy this moment and get to share it with one of my best friends and one of my favorite teammates that I’ve ever played with,” Paschal said.

Paschal is thankful for Averett’s impact in her life, even to this day. She recently gave up coaching to take a position as athletic director and a psychology teach at Clover Garden School in Burlington, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband Taylor and two sons.

“Averett instills academics first,” Paschal said. “I feel like that really helped shape me and where I’m at now in education. I have a huge passion for education and wanting student-athletes to do well and take academics seriously. Athletics are great, too, but I want them to be successful. I think Averett set me up not only as a successful athlete but I gained leadership skills, academic skills and helped me in job as well. I really feel like all of those different characteristics that they instilled in me while I was there is really why I’m in the position I’m in now. … I love that I’m able to now instill those values in middle schoolers and high schoolers instead of them learning those values later in college.”