Wallace softball coach David Dews has now joined the 700-win club. But it didn't come easy.  The win came in dramatic fashion this past Saturday against the Lurleen B. Wallace Lady Saints.

The Lady Govs were playing their last home game of the season. Going into the bottom of the seventh inning, the Lady Govs found themselves trailing 5-4. But they managed to get a runner on base, then Savannah Jenkins sent the Gov faithful home happy when she connected for a two-run homerun.

Not only did it give the Lady Govs a win, it also gave Dews his 700^th career win.

"At the time when we won it, I wasn't thinking about it," Dews said. "I was trying to win the ballgame and it was a real dramatic game and I got caught up in that."

"Later on when things settled down, I guess it's a reflective type game for me. I think about all of the players and the teams we've had and the standard they had, and just trying to instill that into the program now so we can have long-term success."

Right now Dews said he and the team are tired. They haven't had a bye week. As a matter of fact, the team's bye week is this week—the last week of the regular season.

"We've just sort of been going and going. There's was a lot of pressure to try and get in the tournament because at one point we were behind something like 8-16. We've just been battling through so much adversity all year. But we knew at the end, I told them we're probably going to have to sweep the next three series, CVCC, Enterprise, and LBW. I knew it was going to be tough because it's hard to beat anybody four games. Enterprise and LBW had pretty good teams and they were just like us, battling to get in. We grinded and grinded. I think that last weekend, a doubleheader on sophomore day, was huge. We were on fumes. We just sort of scrapped it out and gutted it out and that is what I was most proud of."

Dews has been a head softball coach for 19 years. His head coaching career began at LBW in Andalusia. From there he went to Darton, Lindsey Wilson, Reinhart and finally Wallace.

"I'm going to be honest with you. This is the hardest transition I've ever had as a coach. Partly it was because of moving in late, getting started late, hiring assistant coach Brianna Griffiths late. I thought that was key. I've got a very good assistant coach. It was just getting things in order. We've been running behind pretty much all season. We're going to have it a little bit more organized next season. We'll do a lot of things over the summer to make sure things are more planned out. I feel like our recruiting is back on track. We've got a good signing class in '24 and we've got some '25 offers and commitments. I feel like we're finally getting into the right timeline of things."

"I want to thank my wife, my family and friends for supporting and sticking with me all these years. Most of all I want to thank Christ, my Lord and Savior for making all of this possible."

Dews is still the winningest coach at Lindsey Wilson and Darton. After the Lady Govs late season hot streak, he is now 24-20 at Wallace. That assures him of finishing his first season at Wallace with a winning record.