South Dakota State’s Krista Wood announced the hiring of Kristi Villar as assistant softball coach.

Villar will join the Jackrabbit staff mid-July and bring more than nine years of collegiate coaching experience to the program.

Villar spent the last seven years at Northern State, where she won over 160 games while building a program that had previously never won more than 20 games before her arrival. The Oakdale, Minnesota native won 20 or more games four times, and helped the team to its first 30-win season while earning 2015 NSIC Coach of the Year honors.