Duke joins the MGCCC softball staff

PERKINSTON, Miss. (MGCC Athletics) — Izzy Werdann has added a veteran coach to her first Mississippi Gulf Coast softball staff, bringing in former star MACCC player, a Mississippi high school assistant coach and NCAA Division I associate head coach Katlyn Duke.

“I love the junior college world,” Duke said. “Coming back close to home and getting to make an impact on so many kids in so short a period of time is what I was looking for.”

For the last four seasons, Duke served as the associate head coach at South Carolina State, where she helped guide the Bulldogs within one win of the school’s first MEAC championship of the modern era in 2025.

“I remember playing against her; she was a very, very high-level competitor who we didn’t like to go up against,” Werdann said. “Since then, she’s been growing her knowledge and learning how to train athletes and how to make them be the best that they can be. She helped turn around the South Carolina State program and got them to their conference championship game. She’s got a lot of in-state connections for recruiting, so it just made sense. She brings a very dynamic skill set to our coaching staff, and I’m really excited to have her.”

In 2021, Duke helped lead her alma mater, Neshoba Central, to the USA Today Sports/NFCA High School Super 25 national championship. The Rockets went 32-0 on the way to winning the Class 5A state title that season. The year before that, she was the assistant at Nanih Waiya.

Duke started her college career in the MACCC, where she was a key player for East Central’s run to the 2015 NJCAA championship round as a freshman. She won the Marucci Elite Hitter Award as the tournament’s top batter with 10 hits and 10 RBI, earning All-Tournament Team honors. The Warriors were also runners-up in the MACJC and Region 23 Tournaments. She finished the year with six home runs and 43 RBI. She batted .362 as a sophomore with six homers and 44 RBI, earning All-MACJC honors.

After attending Mississippi State for one year, she went to the Mississippi University for Women to play softball in 2018 after the school resumed athletics, registering the first hit, single, triple, stolen bases and RBI in program history. She was the school’s Female Athlete of the Year and earned USCAA All-American and All-Academic honors in 2018 after batting .331. She still holds the school single-season record for RBI (38) and triples (5). Duke played basketball at The W the next year, leading the Owls to the USCAA national championship and was named to the USCAA All-Academic Team.

At Neshoba Central, Duke’s teams won two state championships in both fast- and slow-pitch softball.

Duke has an associate’s degree in liberal arts from East Central and a bachelor’s in exercise science from MUW.

“I’m all about grit and excellence,” she said. “I was over academics and community outreach and a lot of strength and conditioning at my previous school, and I can bring that experience here.”