WESTFIELD, Mass. –  Westfield State athletic director Richard Lenfest, Jr. removed the interim tag from softball coach Joe Hough’s title on April 18, 2023, as Hough will be retained as head coach of the Owls softball program.

Season Outlook:

2023 Season: In his first season as the head coach for the Owls, Hough led the Owls to their second-winningest season in program history, recording an overall record of 24-18 while posting a 9-5 mark in conference play. The Owls were one of three teams remaining in the MASCAC postseason, defeating Worcester State to advance to the MASCAC Semifinals where the Owls fell in a hard-fought extra innings game to Bridgewater State. The Owls placed four players on the MASCAC All-Conference team during the 2023 campaign.

Hough joined the Owls’ program as an assistant in during the 2021-22 academic year, and was appointed as interim head coach when Skania Valencia left for a coaching position at Division I Siena in the fall of 2022.

“Joe has done an excellent job with our softball program to date, and has earned the right to have the interim tag removed so he can lead our program forward with confidence,” said Lenfest. “The future student-athletes that we are recruiting will know that they will be stepping into a program where they are secure in knowing who their head coach will be.  So far this season Joe has the team playing very well, he has run a good preseason and good practices, and our current players have expressed how much they enjoy playing for him.”

Hough, who is a sixth-grade teacher at Gateway Regional School District, is a native of Ludlow, Mass., and a 1992 graduate of Westfield State University with a Bachelor of Science in Education.

Hough has vast coaching experience in both softball and baseball, notably as a coach with the NWS Elite Softball program for 18 and under players that has played high-level softball all over the Northeast and East Coast.   He served as a coach at Southwick High School from 1994-2020, where he served six years as head coach, where they won their league each year and reached the Western Mass finals for the first time in school history.

Hough also has experience with a variety of camps, clinics and youth programs.

As the Owls’ hitting coach in the 2022 season, he helped lead the Owls to a team season-record with 17 home runs, hit .310 as a team and had a .377 on base percentage.