PINEVILLE, La. - A softball team that is built around pitching will be directed by a pitching coach.

Danielle Price, who spent last season as the Louisiana College pitching coach, on Tuesday was named interim coach of the Lady Wildcats, replacing Tim Whitman, who resigned Nov. 9, citing family and personal reasons.

"I am humbled and honored to have the opportunity," Price said. "We're not going to change anything. We plan to compete for a national championship."

LC has made six straight appearances in NCAA Division III regional play and reached the World Series in 2008, when the Lady Wildcats finished third.

"Softball is integral to LC, just as every sport is that we have," LC President Joe Aguillard said.

"One sport cannot be more important than any other. The success and notoriety that we have enjoyed with softball places it on a very high visual level around the country.

"We do not wish to go backward in the great successes of softball, and we do look forward to a great and highly successful season this coming year."

Assistant coaches Rawlen Scully and Andria Waguespack, who will remain on staff, said they supported Aguillard's decision to promote Price.

"You are not going to find a better organized or harder working coach than Danielle Price," Waguespack said.

Waguespack and Price came to LC last year from St. Thomas More High School, where Waguespack was the head coach and Price was her assistant. Scully came to LC with Whitman in 2002.

"This is going to be my 10th season as an assistant coach," Scully said. "I am very happy in that role. Danielle will do a great job.

"I know I always said that I would leave if Tim left, but I'm staying. Tim and I built this program. I feel like we still have something to prove. We haven't won a national championship yet."

The roles of the three coaches will remain the same, Price said.

"I am still going to work with the pitchers and catchers," Price said. "Andria still is going to work with the infielders, Scully is still going to work with the outfielders, and both and them will work with the hitters.

"There's no reason to change anything. All three of us are committed to doing what is best for the program. It is not about any one person."

Price has previous head coaching experience. She had a 91-24 record in four seasons (1998-2001) at South Terrebonne High School. She followed that with stints as an assistant coach at Vandebilt Catholic (2001-2004) and STM (2006-2009). Waguespack and Price won state championships at STM in 2007 and 2009.

LC catcher Amber Thomas, a senior from Rosepine, said the players would have been happy with any of the assistants as the interim coach.

"They are all good coaches," she said. "We don't have any reason to doubt them, and I don't think anyone does."

Practice will begin in January.

"I am excited for the season," Thomas said. "We have just as much talent as we have had in any other year. Our goal is the same goal that we always have here."