The bats are swinging and the gloves are on.
The Oregon softball squad takes to the road this weekend for the first of six tournaments before the season officially begins.
The Ducks will compete against five teams — Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas Tech, Southwest Texas State, Houston and Arkansas — in the Southwest Texas-hosted CenturyTel Classic. The tournament pits all six schools against one another once, over three days.
“We have all the teams back from last season’s tournament, plus we’ve added a really good Arkansas team,” Southwest Texas head coach Ricci Woodard said. “It should be better than last season’s tournament.”
The tournament features a mix of team experience. Southwest Texas is the two-time defending Southland Conference champion, while Houston’s softball program enters only its third season at the school.
After the weekend in San Marcos, Texas, Oregon returns home to practice before heading to Tallahassee, Fla., for its second tournament of the season.
The Ducks made only a few changes during the offseason, mostly at the coaching positions.
After an audit in October 2001 found a $5,700 discrepancy in the team’s travel fund, former head coach Rick Gamez resigned. Brent Rincon was named interim head coach for the 2001-02 season, when the team finished with a 24-30 record, but went only 2-19 in Pacific-10 Conference play.
In July, the Athletic Department announced its move to hire Kathy Arendsen as the new head coach for the softball program.
Arendsen has 13 years of coaching experience, and her teams had only one losing season during those 13 years. During her six-year tenure at Mississippi State, her last coaching position before Oregon, she rebuilt the Bulldogs’ program from a team on a 10-year hiatus to a squad that had two NCAA tournament berths within a six-year span.
“Obviously, the postseason is our primary goal,” Arendsen said. “The biggest difference here at Oregon is that we’re not starting from scratch. We have inherited a program that has had success, and I’m trying to restore that, not build something new.”
Last season, seven of the eight Pac-10 schools with softball programs were selected for the NCAA tournament. Oregon was the only conference team not selected. Washington State and USC do not field teams.
For the fourth consecutive season, four of the Pac-10 schools that went to the NCAA tournament went on to the College World Series, including 2002 National Champion California. At the end of last season, seven Pac-10 programs were ranked in the USA Today/NFCA Top 25.
After the Ducks finish their six preseason tournaments, they host Portland State in Oregon’s home opener March 13. Four weeks later, the Ducks host their first Pac-10 games against Washington and UCLA.
Oregon returns seven starters and 11 letterwinners from last year’s squad, while only losing three players, including a four-year starting pitcher.