Courtesy Photo
Emma Bell of Eustace bats .411 with 62 hits (including three home runs) while driving in 30 runs for the 2024 Division III softball national champions, East Texas Baptist University.

Courtesy Photo
Eustace High School 2023 graduate Emma Bell holds the NCAA Division III Softball National Championship trophy after East Texas Baptist University’s June 5 title-clinching victory.

EUSTACE–Eustace High School 2023 graduate Emma Bell, a former Lady Bulldog pitcher and shortstop, has brought home a national title ring after starting all 51 games for the 2024 NCAA Division III national champion East Texas Baptist University (ETBU) softball team.
Bell, who just finished her freshman year at ETBU, plays right field for the Tigers, who represent the university located in Marshall. Bell went from her team making the high school playoffs her senior year to a national championship her freshman year in college.
“I knew from the beginning, whenever our team at East Texas Baptist got together, that we had something special,” Bell tells The Monitor. “It was just crazy to have it end the way it did. We always thought we were good, but we didn’t know we were great enough to win the World Series our very first year. It was such a rush of emotions. It was a great feeling because I know that I worked all those years and that all that hard work paid off that very first year.”
The Tigers were also the 2024 American Southwest Conference (ASC) champions with a 22-1 record. Bell was named an ASC Player to Watch and as a First Team All-ASC outfielder, as well as being honored as an All-Region First Team outfielder.
Going from Eustace to college was a drastic change, Bell says. At ETBU, Bell studies business administration. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted because there’s people who want to get better, and they want to make each other better,” Bell shares. “Everybody is so uplifting. I just wouldn’t trade any of it for the world.”
Before winning the national title, ETBU reached a regular-season rank of No. 2 in the nation before winning Regional and Super Regional championships in the postseason. Bell was named to the All-Region All-Tournament team, reports her proud parent, Norma Bell.
For the season, Emma had a .411 batting average and had 62 hits (including three home runs) while driving in 30 runs. The teams in ETBU’s conference include McMurry University, LeTourneau University, the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, Hardin-Simmons University, Concordia University, the University of Texas at Dallas, Howard Payne University, University of the Ozarks and Sul Ross State University.
ETBU beat Texas Lutheran University in Regional play May 18, winning 5-3. The Tigers beat Williams College in the Super Regional held May 24, 10-9. At the World Series (which was played at ETBU’s home field), ETBU beat Belhaven University (who had toppled the No. 1 team, Linfield University) June 5 for the national title, clinching the championship with two wins that day.
Bell thanks her parents (Steven and Norma), and at Eustace she gives thanks to Theresa Tindel (a former basketball coach her sophomore to senior year, as well as her agricultural science teacher since third grade), Lauren Odom (her former varsity softball coach), Sonny Hodge (her first pitching coach), Eustace ISD Athletic Director and Head Volleyball Coach Natosha Spain, Eustace High School softball coach Joanna Johnson (her senior-year head coach), her summer and youth league coach, Scott Tuley, “and all my coaches at Eustace, as well.”
What’s next for Bell this summer? “For a little bit, I’m just going to chill out,” she shares. “I plan to keep working out and keep doing what I was doing.”