Contact: Houston Taylor
MAGNOLIA, Ark. – Beginning a season with a new coach and half your team made up of new faces usually doesn’t garner much respect when it comes to preseason polls and that’s exactly what Southern Arkansas discovered as they are picked to finish last in the 2012 Great American Conference pre-season softball coaches’ poll released Monday. The Lady Muleriders received one fourth, one sixth and five seventh-place votes for 11 points in the eight-team league.
Corey Lyon was hired this past summer to lead the SAU softball program, following a successful three-year stint at Paris (Texas) Junior College where his teams were 125-52, claimed a division conference championship and advanced to the region tournament all three seasons. Southern Arkansas returns only nine players from last year heading into their 2012 campaign. Eleven other newcomers make up the rest of the squad, six of them true freshmen.
According to the GAC softball coaches, Arkansas-Monticello and Southeastern Oklahoma State are expected to battle it out to claim the inaugural conference championship. Both tied for first in the preseason poll with 42 points. The Cotton Blossoms received five first-place votes and one each for third and sixth, while the Savage Storm garnered two first-place nods, three for second and two for third.
East Central (Okla.) (38 points) received the lone remaining first-place vote, two for second, three third and one fourth-place vote in being picked to finish third. Arkansas Tech (35) is fourth, Ouachita Baptist (22) is fifth, Henderson State (19) sixth, and Southwestern Oklahoma State received 15 points to finish ahead of the Lady Muleriders at seventh.
The GAC preseason poll is voted on by the league’s head coaches who are not allowed to vote for their own teams. No preseason all-conference teams were selected as it’s the league’s first year of existence.
SAU opens its 2012 season February 4-5 in Denton, Texas, in a three-game series with Texas Woman’s. They then play a doubleheader in Conway against Central Baptist Feb. 7, before competing in the Texas A&M-Kingsville Javelina tournament in Kingsville, Texas, Feb. 10-12 and the Southeastern Oklahoma State South Central Shootout in Durant, Okla., Feb. 17-19. They host their home opener February 21 in a doubleheader with Central Baptist, and open GAC play Feb. 25-26 against Arkansas Tech in Russellville.
