The Oregon softball team was ranked No. 16 in a D1Softball preseason top 25 poll on Tuesday.
The ranking comes after a year in which the Ducks went 40-17 in the regular season and made the NCAA Regional final. Defending champion Oklahoma was ranked at the top of the poll after a 56-4 record. UCLA was the highest ranked Pac-12 team at No. 4, while No. 15 Arizona and No. 21 Arizona State also made the list.
Additionally, Brooke Yanez and Allee Bunker were named among the nation’s “Elite 100” players by Extra Inning Softball.
Yanez carried the starting rotation in 2021, posting a 22-6 record and 2.11 ERA. The lefty finished second in the Pac-12 with 268 strikeouts, good for the third-most strikeouts in a single season in Oregon history. She appeared in 37 games, 30 of which were starts. She’ll be going into her fifth year with the team in 2022.
Bunker, a senior second baseman, hit .342 in 2021 and owns a .359 batting average over her three years with the Ducks. Remarkably, she struck out only six times in 200 plate appearances last season.
While the team lost Haley Cruse, it brings back five other starters in addition to Yanez and Bunker. Catcher Terra McGowan returns after hitting .308 last year and showing an impressive throwing arm behind the plate. The team also brings back Jasmine Williams (formerly Sievers) after she took a year off due to her pregnancy, as well as third baseman Rachel Cid and outfielders Hanna Delgado and Ariel Carlson.
The Ducks will kick off the 2022 season against Ole Miss on Feb. 10 in Fullerton.