No. 4 nationally-ranked Mustangs host Calhoun in ACCC opener Thursday
In just its second year of existence, the Northeast Alabama Community College softball program has gone from a relative unknown to nationally-recognized.
The Mustangs opened the 2026 season with a 19-game winning streak and are currently ranked No. 4 in the latest National Junior College Athletic Association Division I Softball Rankings.
After a challenging and successful non-conference schedule, NACC (19-1) is set to begin the most important part of its schedule, a 32-game slate in Alabama Community College Conference play.
NACC head coach Joe Guthrie believes the 2026 ACCC season is shaping up to be one of the most challenging and exciting ever.
“Three teams in the conference are ranked, and I can’t remember the last time that happened — maybe never, but certainly before my time, and I’ve been associated with the league on and off for 20 years,” said Guthrie, who prior to serving as the head coach at UAB and in assistant roles at Louisiana, Bucknell, Penn State and Texas A&M was the head coach at ACCC member Marion Military Institute. “And it’s not just the teams that are ranked. There are another four that are right there knocking on the door that are Top-40, Top-50 teams. I’m on that (rankings) committee, and there were a lot of teams from Alabama that kept popping up. That’s good for softball here. It’s always more challenging in conference, but I think it’s going to be really exciting this year because we’ve got really good teams. We’re not the only team making national headlines. A lot of (ACCC) teams have national aspirations.”
The Mustangs open conference play by hosting a doubleheader with Calhoun at Nathaniel Ledbetter Stadium Thursday at 1 p.m. before playing two games against the Warhawks Saturday (1 p.m.) in Decatur.
NACC’s success this season has thrust it onto the national scene, and Guthrie is hopeful the Mustangs’ non-conference success leads to more of the same in ACCC play. He has also stressed to his players that success will be used against them by their opponents.
“It’s been kind of quick steps,” Guthrie said. “We went from nobody knowing who we are and us learning how to win to we’ve got some big-time national wins. What we’ve got to learn to do is win with a target on our back. We’re going to get everybody’s best shot. We can’t play from behind. That’s the biggest lesson from the last two weeks. We got away with it, got away with it, got away with it, but Roane State eventually got us and that’s a credit to them. If you keep getting behind, eventually it’s going to bite you.”
Guthrie wants the challenges and lessons learned during the non-conference portion of the schedule to pay off in conference play.
“We’re going to empty the tank in the conference,” Guthrie said. “There’s a lot of people that can play roles for us. Some may end up carrying more water than they did earlier in the year. We’ve played exceptional defense — we have the No. 1 ranked defense in the country. We’ve got to start the game better. We’ve kind of woken up mid-game in the first game (of doubleheaders). Typically, the second game has been better offensively. But that’s not a pattern that’s going to lead to consistent success. And we certainly have to continue to do the things that we have been doing well. If we do that, it’ll benefit us for sure. I’m glad we’ve done well in what’s been a challenging non-conference schedule. If you look at the numbers, our strength of schedule to this point and our future schedule, will be Top-25, Top-30 (nationally), which is good, because I think this is going to be the most challenging conference year in a long time in this league.”
