RUSSELLVILLE, Ark. – In advance of the 2022 NCAA Division II softball season which opens up in the first weekend of February, the Great American Conference announced its preseason rankings which were decided by the league's 12 head coaches and atop the poll for the sixth straight year and in the top three for the eighth time overall is eighth-year head coach Jason Anderson's Southern Arkansas Muleriders. SAU received 115 total points and seven of the dozen first-place votes to carry the title of preseason favorite.
 
The Muleriders were first named preseason favorites in 2017 following the club's run to the DII Softball World Series where SAU placed fourth. Since then, SAU has sat atop the preseason rankings and has received ten or more first-place votes three times, including unanimous selection in 2019 and 2021. Arkansas Tech followed with three first-place votes and 108 total points to place second, while Southeastern Oklahoma received the final two first-place votes to go along with 105 total points in third.
 
Southern Arkansas enters the '22 season, its 24^th as an NCAA program, as the defending Great American Conference regular season champions and is coming off of a 2021 season that resulted in a 29-10 record overall with a 22-5 mark in league play. The Muleriders advanced to NCAA postseason play for the sixth time in program history and finished the season with four regional contests all decided by a single run.
 
Sixteen players return from last season's squad headlined by D2CCA All-Region Second Team and All-GAC First Team selection Alese Casper. All-GAC honorees Sarah Evans and Jaxynn Dyson also return to give Anderson a formidable "up-the-middle" presence for a club that lost three all-region performers and five all-league selections to graduation. In the circle, Southern Arkansas will not benefit from a single-third of its 256.0 total innings pitched last season, but the new-look staff will be led by a highly-touted group of first year Muleriders in freshman transfer Sydney Ward (Crowder College), graduate transfer Baylie Thornhill (Ohio), freshman transfer Kiana Pogroszewski (Bossier Parish CC), freshman transfer Macie Welch (Memphis) and freshman Mackenzie Baldwin (Klein Oak HS).
 
SAU opens the 2022 season on February 4 in Conroe, Texas, at the Arkansas Tech Winter Invitational. The Muleriders will begin play on that Friday against Texas A&M International and will close out the season's first day against Augustana; who sent the Muleriders to the loser's bracket of the 2021 Central Region Tournament with a 3-2 win in eight innings last May.