WHEELING — When she takes a step back and actually thinks about her rise in the softball coaching profession, Sara Pelegreen can hardly believe it herself.

To be a NCAA Division II coach at the ripe old age of 25 is fairly hard to fathom.

But, such is reality for the Harrison Central graduate. Pelegreen was formally announced as the new head coach at Wheeling Jesuit University late last week.

“I wasn’t expecting this (opportunity) so soon,” Pelegreen said. “The opportunity came up for a team I love and I couldn’t imagine passing up the chance.”

The most interesting part of Pelegreen’s rise in the coaching profession is that it basically happened for her by accident. She didn’t grow up with aspirations of coaching. She certainly grew up with a love affair for softball. However, for her career, she originally wanted to be a sports broadcaster.

“It was December of last year before I even thought of coaching (softball) as a career,” Pelegreen admitted.

Working with Williams as the pitching coach through a graduate assistant’s program, Pelegreen went to the National Softball Coaches Convention in Atlanta. As she heard speaker after speaker, it hit her like a ton of bricks as what she wanted to do with her life.

“Hearing all these coaches talk was so inspiring,” Pelegreen said. “I felt like I related to each and everyone of them so well. I knew that (coaching) was what I wanted to do.”

When she accepted her G.A.’s post at WJU, she first thought it was simply an opportunity to spend a few more years around the game she started playing when she was five.

“It turned out that softball and coaching are really what I love and I simply couldn’t imagine doing anything else,” Pelegreen said. “I am now excited to start a career.”

After sifting through dozens of texts, Facebook messages and Tweets of congratulations over the last few days, Pelegreen is now looking forward to getting to work.

“The season will be here before we know, but we have a long offseason (of conditioning) and work before it gets here,” Pelegreen said. “We’re hoping for a lot of good things this season. We have some great players coming back and some good freshmen coming in.”

Pelgreen’s coaching career is actually off to a rousing success, which made her resume stand out to the WJU hiring committee, which put the former all-WVIAC pitcher at West Virginia State through a rigorous interview process.

“(The interview process) was the longest eight hours of my life,” Pelegreen said. “I had meetings with four different groups, including the team. I felt like I was on my game though. Even if I hadn’t got this job, I am glad I had that experience of going through that process.”

Pelegreen has served as the Cardinals’ chief assistant the last two seasons, working with the pitchers. In helping to lead the Cardinals to a 35-win season last spring, Pelegreen’s pitching staff came up big, too. It lowered its ERA to 2.52 and opposing teams hit just .250.

Another feather in Pelegreen’s cap was her willingness to lead the program in the days and now months since then Kelli Williams stepped down to accept the head coaching job at Heidelburg. Her doing that allowed the Cardinals players to maintain consistency during their fall campaign, which was scheduled to wrap up on Saturday with the annual alumni game.

“(The consistency) is what the girls needed,” Pelegreen confessed. “By doing that, we’ve been able to hit the ground running since September when the students came back to school.”

When Williams informed Wheeling Jesuit and Pelegreen that she was leaving she encouraged Pelegreen to apply for the position.

“I told her I would absolutely be interested in applying, so I went for it,” Pelegreen said. “I know the kind of program we have, I’ve enjoyed my time at Wheeling Jesuit and decided to give it a shot. And it turned out well for me.”

Pelegreen actually was informed she was the Cardinals’ choice about two weeks ago. Outside of telling her family and a “few close friends,” she was able to keep it a secret.

Though she’s been on the staff, Pelegreen admits when she coaches her first game at the I-470 Complex next spring, the feeling of coming full circle will certainly be evident.

“My mom and I were talking not too long ago about how when I played my last game at 470 (in high school), I thought that was all for me at those fields, but now I am going to be coaching there,” Pelegreen said. “It’ll be great being on that field again.”

With her Ohio Valley connection still strong and evident, Pelegreen hopes that translates on the recruiting trail. But, she’s certainly not going to limit herself in that regard.

“If there’s a good player in the Ohio Valley, I want her,” Pelegreen said. “I want to see what she has, but I also want to branch out in recruiting because a lot of big-time players come from far away.”

Since Pelegreen was able to maintain the level of consistency in the program, the coaching change hasn’t had a negative impact on the Cardinals’ Class of 2017 recruiting.

“We have five girls committed that we plan to sign in November and we’ll start really looking at our 2018 and 2019 classes,” Pelegreen said.

Pelegreen, who helped lead her college teams to a pair of NCAA Division II tournaments and a conference crown, is afforded one graduate assistant for her coaching staff and that will be Casey Crawford, who played at West Virginia State prior to Pelegreen’s arrival.

SETH’S SCOOPS

UNION LOCAL was listed on the OHSAA’s infractions list that was distributed to the media following last week’s board of directors meeting. According to the release, the Jets ” had a student-athlete in varsity football violate Bylaw 4-6-3, Residency, and, in accordance with Bylaw 10-2-1, Forfeitures, the school must forfeit any victorious contest in which the ineligible student participated. However, no such forfeiture was required since the contest was a scrimmage and scrimmages do not carry any “won-lost” statistics.”

GIRLS BASKETBALL practice begins in Ohio on Friday. Boys will begin on Nov. 4.

Staskey can be reached via email at sstaskey@timesleaderonline.com or at twitter.com/TLSportsSeth