Softball is not a sport that necessarily comes naturally to University of Maryland Eastern Shore coach Sam Douglas.

The former Devonshire Colt is more comfortable with a ball at his feet than in his hands, but that hasn't stopped him leading his women's team to their first 20-win season in more than a decade, and grabbing a Coach of the Year award in the process.

It's not a bad result for a man who has only been involved in the game full-time for the past three years, and learnt all he knows from watching videos and reading play books.

Douglas' UMES Lady Hawks made the post-season Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference tournament for the first time in five years last month, after winning 20 games in a season for the first time since 1996.

Although the NCAA Division One Lady Hawks dropped out of the tournament early on, following an 11-2 loss to North Carolina A&T University, they had four players named All-Conference, and one, Hannah Mills, named in the MEAC All-Tournament team.

Before the tournament even began Douglas was named MEAC Coach of the Year for his efforts, something he described as 'an outstanding honour'.

"It's been a really good year," said Douglas. "This is my third year as coaching full-time. My first year we won three games, the next we won five and now we've gone up to 20.

"It's (the award) an outstanding honour. I'm greatly appreciative of everyone who voted for me, but the girls deserve the credit. They work hard and anything I get is basically because of them."

Douglas actually began life at UMES as a student, playing soccer for the college before becoming the team's head coach when he graduated in 1991. He fell into softball when the college's athletics programme failed to find an assistant softball coach.

"When I became soccer coach I shared an office with the softball coach. She didn't have an assistant and I didn't have an assistant, so we used to help each other out," said Douglas.

"To start with I just used to work with the girls on conditioning, getting them warmed up for practice. But then the softball coach was also the volleyball coach, and her season ran on, and I had to take softball practice. So she ran through the drills with me and then I ran the practice and it went from there.

"After a while I got a feel for it, and she gave me videos, and books, and stuff like that to study, and I just picked it up from there."

Eventually Douglas took charge of the whole softball programme and started recruiting as well as coaching. His choices seem to have paid off so far, but the Hamilton Parish native won't be resting on his laurels.

Having led the team to a successful season this year, Douglas is already preparing for a new campaign.

"My five year plan (when I started the job) was to win the conference tournament. So we're right on schedule and so I want to win the tournament and go into the main NCAA tournament which is on television at the moment."