Another golden moment for USF’s Eriksen

Posted Oct 26, 2011 by Adam Adkins

Updated Oct 26, 2011 at 08:38 PM

University of South Florida softball coach Ken Eriksen enjoyed another golden moment with the U.S. women’s national softball program Sunday.

Eriksen, who since January has served as the head coach of Team USA, watched his squad wrap up the gold medal at the 2011 Pan American Games in Guadalajara, Mexico, with an 11-1 win over Canada that was shortened by the 10-run mercy rule.

The victory capped a 9-0 record at the tournament for the Americans and gave the U.S. its seventh-consecutive gold medal and eighth overall at the Pan Am Games, which have been held every four years since 1979.

“This is the first time that Team USA went into a major tournament like that with players that did not have any other Pan Am experience or Olympic experience, so we had 17 rookies going into this tournament,” said Eriksen, who has been involved with the women’s national program since 2001 and was an assistant coach on the 2004 squad that won an Olympic gold medal.

“For them to do what they did against teams like Cuba, Canada and Venezuela, who have Olympians and former Pan Am players from the last 12 years, I thought they did an unbelievable job.”

When trying to formulate Team USA for this event, Eriksen said he didn’t target the nation’s 17 best players but rather the “best 17 teammates.” Much to Eriksen’s satisfaction, the plan worked. The U.S. dominated, outscoring its opponents by a combined 78-8.

Like the Olympics, only players are awarded medals at the Pan Am Games, so Eriksen didn’t bring home a priceless token around his neck. The memory he’ll always have of seeing the team honored, though, is priceless in its own right.

“Watching those young ladies get up and step up on that podium again, it was the same type of deal as in Athens,” Eriksen said, referencing the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece. “I sat there with my coaches and we had that same great swelling of our chests as that flag went up. It was a great sense of accomplishment for the program.”

Eriksen wasn’t the only person with ties to USF on a gold-medal winning team at the Pan Am Games. Former women’s basketball player Jazmine Sepulveda helped Puerto Rico win gold as well.

Sepulveda scored 21 points in a victory over the U.S. in group play, and had six points in the gold medal game win over Mexico.