HUNTSVILLE | The Gulf South Conference Softball All-Decade Teams were unveiled on Thursday, and The University of Alabama in Huntsville matched a conference-best with nine total selections headlined by Les Stuedeman being named the GSC Coach of the Decade for a second time.
 
Tying Valdosta State for the most choices to the First Team, UAH was represented by Kaitlyn Bannister, Mary Kelley, Tyler Harrison, and Cortney McNett, while each of Kelli Long, Stephanie Needham, and Whitney Toler landed on the Second Team.
 
UAH's seven players on the two teams were the most in the league.
 
Rounding out UAH's contingent, Macie Couey and Alex Lewis both earned Honorable Mention status to tie the Chargers with VSU with the nine honorees.
 
Stuedeman – who was also named the GSC East Division Coach of the Decade in 2010 and was named the GSC Coach of the Year four times in this most recent decade alone – guided the Chargers to an impressive 396-144-1 during the decade and led UAH to the NCAA tournament each season in which it was held. In those NCAA tournaments, the Chargers finished as the national runner-up in 2011 and reached the Super Regional round three times. During the decade, UAH players were 18 times named an All-American while garnering all-region status 64 times, and the program won the GSC Player of the Year twice, GSC Pitcher of the Year twice, and GSC Freshman of the Year once. 
 
Stuedeman guided the Chargers to all of this success while also serving a term on the NCAA Division II Softball Committee, and during the 10-year period, she was inducted into four Halls of Fame including the NFCA Hall of Fame and the Huntsville-Madison County Athletic Hall of Fame.
 
Bannister turned in a terrific career, starting at third base during her four seasons as a Charger. A National Player of the Year finalist in 2017, Bannister was a two-time First Team All-American on both the NFCA and D2CCA lists, and she was the D2CCA South Region Player of the Year in both 2015 and 2017 after also being named the GSC Player of the Year in those two seasons. During her career, she established the GSC record for RBI with 273, and she ranks fifth in runs with 215 and eighth with a .405 career batting average. 
 
Harrison earned D2CCA All-American Honorable Mention status in both the 2016 and 2017 seasons, and in 2017 she was the D2CCA South Region Pitcher of the Year in addition to being the GSC Pitcher of the Year. A four-time All-GSC selection, she tossed two career no-hitters, and Harrison finished her UAH career ranked fifth all-time in program history with 433 strikeouts and sixth with 59 wins. 
 
One of two UAH players to be a four-time All-American, Kelley – selected to the All-Decade Team as an outfielder – was a NFCA First Team All-American in both 2011 and 2012 while landing on the Daktronics Third Team All-America in both 2013 and 2014. She was a three-time GSC Top 10 award recipient as one of the best of the best in the conference, and Kelley concluded her career as the GSC record holder with 79 doubles. Additionally, she ranks fourth all-time with 216 runs and fifth with 229 RBI.
 
McNett was a Charger for two seasons and was a NFCA All-American in both including a First Team nod in 2013. McNett was a First Team All-GSC catcher in both 2012 and 2013, and she finished her two seasons with a .411 batting average which is the sixth-best career mark in GSC history while also ranking sixth all-time with a .741 slugging percentage. 
 
A three-time NFCA All-South Region selection in the outfield, Long also was a four-time First Team All-GSC choice including in 2011 and 2012. For her career she totaled 209 runs which ranks sixth all-time in GSC history, and she also amassed 107 stolen bases which is tied for seventh in the league's record book. Additionally, Long established the UAH record with 13 career triples.
 
Needham was a First Team NFCA and Daktronics All-American at first base in 2012, and she was also the Daktronics South Region Player of the Year. A two-time First Team All-GSC honoree, she ranks second all-time in league history with a .438 batting average, and she is third all-time with a .781 slugging percentage. Both the batting average and slugging percentage are tops all-time in UAH history, and she set the NCAA Division II national tournament record with five hits in a game while also matching the event's records in both RBI with five and home runs with two.
 
Selected to the All-GSC Teams in each of her four seasons, Toler was a First Team choice in both 2011 and 2013, and the pitcher ranks eighth in GSC history with a winning streak of 15 games while also ranking 10th with a .793 career winning percentage. At UAH, Toler is fifth with 65 wins and seventh with 338 strikeouts.
 
Included among the honorable mention selections are those who were not eligible for All-Decade status by only playing one season during the decade as was the case for Couey and Lewis.
 
Couey was a NFCA and Daktronics All-American in her one season with UAH in 2014, and in that year she posted the GSC's single-season record with 12 triples, hit .471 which is the sixth-best single-season mark in conference history, and scored 71 times for the seventh-best single-season record in the GSC.
 
Lewis was a four-year player for the Chargers but just one of those came in the decade in 2011 when she was a First Team All-GSC choice. Lewis holds the GSC career record for saves with 48, and she also owns three of the top five single-season save totals including the second-best mark of 16 in the 2011 season. In that year she also featured the third-best strikeout ratio in GSC history at 10.08.