Bio

Bio: Head coach Joe Hough quickly made a named for himself and the Owls program in the Massachusetts State Collegiate Athletic Conference and on the national stage, as he has earned three straight MASCAC Coach of the Year awards, and the team has won more games in each of his four years at the helm of the program, culminating with a record 39-win season in 2026 and a win in the NCAA Regional Tournament/

2026: Season:  Hough earned MASCAC coach of the year honors for a third straight season, guiding the Owls to a 39-3 overall record, and a 15-1 mark in the MASCAC.  The 39 wins were the most-ever by any Westfield State athletics team.   Westfield won 26 consecutive games to open the season, and the Owls jumped into the NFCA/GoRout national poll for the first time, peaking at #21 just before the NCAA Tournament.  Westfield won the MASCAC title with a 1-0, extra-innings win over Worcester State in the tournament championship game to earn the league's automatic bid, and the program's first NCAA Tourney bid since 1983.  Hough's Owls won the NCAA Tournament opener with a 2-1 win over Cortland State, before dropping close games to host Moravian and Cortland.  Joe's daughter Sarah, the Owls shortstop, was named the MASCAC player of the year, and sophomore pitcher Angelina Vartuli earned the league's pitcher of the year awards as seven Owls players were named to the All Conference teams.  Sarah Hough, Hannah Wodecki, Kassidy LaTour and Mia Alfonso were all selected for the NFCA All-Region Team.  The team set 13 records in the hitting categories.

2025 Season: In his third season as head coach of the Owls, Joe Hough led Westfield to their first 30-win season in program history with 32 wins. The Owls were named the MASCAC regular season champions. The Owls won their first round playoff game before falling in the semifinals. Hough had six student athletes make all-conference first and second teams with MASCAC pitcher of the year. Hough earned the MASCAC Coach of the Year honors, his second time in two years winning the award.

2024 Season: Hough led the Owls to a record-setting season, breaking the single-season win record after producing a 28-13-1 overall record and a 12-2 mark in the conference to clinch the MASCAC regular season title and the number one seed in the MASCAC Tournament. Westfield picked up a pair of wins in the tournament to advance into the conference championship game for the first time since 2018 where the Owls fell to Framingham. Hough guided the Owls to single-season records in wins, home runs, innings pitched, and games played while also being named as the BSN Sports Coach of the Year in the MASCAC. The Owls placed seven players on the league's All-Conference teams, including five on the first team. 

2023 Season: In his first season as the head coach for the Owls, Hough led the Owls to their second-winningest season in program history, recording an overall record of 24-18 while posting a 9-5 mark in conference play. The Owls were one of three teams remaining in the MASCAC postseason, defeating Worcester State to advance to the MASCAC Semifinals where the Owls fell in a hard-fought extra innings game to Bridgewater State. The Owls placed four players on the MASCAC All-Conference team during the 2023 campaign.

Hough joined the Owls’ program as an assistant in during the 2021-22 academic year, and was appointed as interim head coach when Skania Valencia left for a coaching position at Division I Siena in the fall of 2022.

“Joe has done an excellent job with our softball program to date, and has earned the right to have the interim tag removed so he can lead our program forward with confidence,” said Westfield State AD Richard Lenfest,Jr. at the time of his hire. “The future student-athletes that we are recruiting will know that they will be stepping into a program where they are secure in knowing who their head coach will be.  So far this season Joe has the team playing very well, he has run a good preseason and good practices, and our current players have expressed how much they enjoy playing for him.”

Hough retired from a career as a sixth-grade teacher at Gateway Regional School District. He is a native of Ludlow, Mass., and a 1992 graduate of Westfield State University with a Bachelor of Science in Education.

Hough has vast coaching experience in both softball and baseball, notably as a coach with the NWS Elite Softball program for 18 and under players that has played high-level softball all over the Northeast and East Coast.   He served as a coach at Southwick High School from 1994-2020, where he spent six years as head coach, where they won their league each year and reached the Western Mass finals for the first time in school history.

Hough also has experience with a variety of camps, clinics and youth programs.

As the Owls’ hitting coach in the 2022 season, he helped lead the Owls to a team season-record with 17 home runs, hit .310 as a team and had a .377 on base percentage.