By Mike London
Salisbury Post
MISENHEIMER – USA South opponents were ready for Pfeiffer softball’s Landry Stewart this season.
They’d seen her act before and they’d game planned to stop her – but, putting it as nicely as possible, they failed to do so.
The junior center fielder, a run-scoring machine as a lead-off slapper, bumped her batting average from .474 in 2025 to .516 in 2026 and nearly doubled her stolen base tally from 42 to 81. She was voted USA South Player of the Year for the second straight season.
“I set a standard my first year at Pfeiffer, and my goal was to try to top it,” Stewart said. “There are always ways to improve.”
Stewart is skilled enough that she can “power slap” the ball through the infielders if they play in tight. She hit a few balls through gaps in the outfield, which explains how she had three triples and four doubles.
“Most teams play a bunt defense against me, but I can either slap it between them or by them,” Stewart said. “And if the third baseman stays back, that makes it easy. I can lay it down for a hit almost every time.”
Stewart started playing softball as a 7-year-old for her grandfather, Lex Graham, the former A.L. Brown basketball coach. She is phenomenally fast, a gift coaches started discovering by the time she was in middle school.
While she was in middle school, Landry watched her sister, Rylie, do the pitching for Carson, as the Cougars got hot in the playoffs and reached the West Championship Series. That exciting playoff run is what convinced Landry that she wanted to become a college softball player.
The Stewart sisters had divergent skill sets. While Rylie had the head and the heart to control games from the circle, Landry was blessed with the raw athletic talent in the family.
Landry made a decision by the time she got to high school that becoming a lefty slapper gave her the best chance to succeed at a high level. Slapping made the best use of her most obvious tool – her speed.
“(Coach) Johnny Meadows connected me with Tianna Batts, a coach who had been an All-America slapper at Alexander Central and went on to play at Tennessee,” Stewart said. “She taught me a lot about slapping. It took a lot of training, but it became a natural way to hit for me. You’re walking into the ball, so slapping is not easy, but I’ve gotten consistent with it.”
Stewart learned that slapping involves hard slaps as well as soft slaps. There are different slaps for different situations. She became an expert.
COVID was the first thing to slow down Stewart. She was limited to six games as a Carson freshman and 15 in the half-season that was played her sophomore year. But she blew up at camps between her sophomore and junior years of high school.
She had two All-State high school seasons for the Cougars, batting .500 with 35 runs as a junior and .473 with 32 runs as a senior. Her speed got her recruited by a number of schools.
She signed with USC Upstate, in Spartanburg, S.C., in the fall of her senior year. It was a good D-I program and seemed like the ideal fit, not too far away from home, but things didn’t work out for her there. It’s not like she wasn’t good enough to play there, but she wasn’t enjoying softball the way she had in high school and she was homesick. She missed her family. She also missed her boyfriend, Carson graduate Cameron Burleyson, who was busy playing baseball for Catawba.
She only stayed at USC-Upstate for a semester. She continued to take college courses after she came home and she watched a lot of Catawba baseball games, but she didn’t know what was coming next as far as athletics.
Meadows re-entered the picture at that point and introduced Stewart to his friend and colleague, Pfeiffer head softball coach Monte Sherrill, a former Pfeiffer baseball player, a former U.S. Marine and a legendary high school coach before he returned to Pfeiffer to guide the Falcons.
Pfeiffer is only 18 miles from Salisbury and provided Stewart with a chance to not only return to the softball field, but to be the girlfriend, daughter, sister and aunt that she wanted to be. Coach Sherrill quickly restored the love of the game that she had slipped away during her freshman year.
“Softball players are people,” Stewart said. “Life is a lot bigger than softball. Pfeiffer is a small school, and it’s been great for me. Pfeiffer has given me the chance to be more than just a softball player.”
Stewart was terrific for Pfeiffer when she debuted in 2025. There were some nerves initially in her new surroundings, but once she settled in, she was hard to contain – 63 hits and 49 runs scored. She batted over .500 until very late in the season.
Her encore in 2006 was even better. She is one of the national leaders in D-III in hits (82), runs (64), steals (81) and batting average (.517). She was an astounding 81-for-85 on steals, breaking all sorts of records. She’s been able to turn softball games into track meets. As soon as she gets to first base, she’s thinking about stealing second. As soon as she steals second, she’s looking to take third. She puts a lot of pressure on a defense.
“I’ve had the green light,” Stewart said. “There was a period of adjustment last year. Coach Sherrill usually has power softball teams, and I was a different kind of player from what he normally recruits. But he’s been great as far as believing in me and in what I can do for the team.”
Stewart started a lot of games by getting on base and using her wheels to manufacture the Falcons a quick 1-0 lead. She understands her role precisely – provide the spark and light the fuse for the capable hitters coming up behind her. She struck out only 10 times all season, while walking 20 times.
Defensively, Stewart plays center field for the Falcons. Not much falls in front of her or behind her.
She already has been named All-Region and probably will be an All-America selection.
The Falcons finished this season with a 40-11 record. They lost in a regional championship game on the road, 3-2, to a 48-0 Virginia Wesleyan team that might win it all.
Stewart, who expects be a teacher/coach down the road, plans to return to Pfeiffer for one more softball season in 2027.
It will be hard to top .517 and 81 steals, but she’ll take her best shot at raising the bar even higher for all the Falcons that follow her.
