• CSTV.com Softball Preview Index
• CSTV.com Player Of The Year Preseason Rankings
• CSTV.com Projected NCAA Tournament Bracket

Features Projected Regionals Photo Galleries 1/28: It's Not Baseball For Girls 1/28: Keeping The Watch 1/29: Taryne Up The Competition 1/29: One Man Down 1/30: Once And Again 1/31: New Name, Same Game 2/1: Crowding The Mound 2/1: Getting Better Without Age 2/2: Backing Up The Best 2/3: Pre-Season Last To Post-Season Berth? 2/4: Into The Big Pond 2/5: Weapons In The Tide 2/6: Transforming The Game 2/6: New Conference On Deck 2/7: Right Where She Belongs 2/8: Bringing The World To The Series 2/8: Planning The Pre-Conference Season  Conference Breakdowns  1/29: Pac-10 Conference 1/29: Big West Conference 1/30: Big 12 Conference 1/30: Mid-American Conference 1/31: Southeastern Conference 1/31: Western Athletic Conference 2/1: Conference USA 2/1: Sun Belt Conference 2/2: Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference 2/2: Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference
2/2: Colonial Athletic Association 2/2: Ohio Valley Conference 2/3: Ivy League 2/3: America East Conference 2/3: Southern Conference 2/3: Atlantic Sun Conference 2/3: Southland Conference 2/4: Big East Conference 2/4: Patriot League 2/4: Atlantic 10 Conference 2/5: Missouri Valley Conference 2/5: Atlantic Coast Conference 2/6: Big South Conference 2/6: Mountain West Conference 2/7: Horizon League 2/7: Big Ten Conference 2/8: Pacific Coast Softball Conference 2/8: Summit League 2/8: Northeast Conference 2/8: Southwestern Athletic Conference

 

 

Feb. 1, 2008

By Carolyn Braff

CSTV.com

CAROLYN BRAFF
Carolyn is an assistant editor and writer for CSTV.com.
E-mail         ---   Column Archive   --- SOFTBALL 3/7: Return Of The Terps 2/29: (Two And) Oh, Canada 2/15: Throwing Off The Rust 2/8: Northeast Conference Preview 2/8: Summit League Preview 2/8: Planning The Pre-Conference Season 2/8: Bringing The World To The Series 2/8: Bruin Magic In Numbers 2/7: Horizon League Preview 2/5: ACC Preview 2/5: MWV Preview 2/2: Backing Up The Best 2/2: Defense Will Anchor Hofstra's Next Title Run 2/2: Tech Going For Seventh Straight OVC Title 2/1: Getting Better Without Age 2/1: Crowding The Mound 2/1: Sun Belt Preview 2/1: Cold Weather Winners 1/31: New Name, Same Game 1/29: Arizona Is One Man Down 1/28: It's Not Baseball For Girls 1/24: Modeling The Right Role FOOTBALL 01/15: Getting Somewhere 1/7: The Home Team vs. The Road Warrior 1/1: Singing The Maize And Blues 12/27: Up-Downs For Texas 12/18: Lying In Wait 12/11: Warrior Green: The New Boise Blue 12/8: Best Of The Rest 12/4: A Winning Preparation 11/27: Easy Road To The Big Easy 11/20: Running The Backup and Crashing 11/13: Least Common Denominators 11/6: Throw The Ducks A Bone 10/30: Boise Is Back 10/23: They've Got Guts 10/16: Kansas Full of Cupcakes 10/9: Pay Attention To The Men Behind The Curtain 10/2: Not-Such-Surprises 9/25: Irish Inflation 9/18: The Star and The Slump 9/11: Four's No Crowd 9/4: Unmatched Matchups 8/22: No Peterson, No Problem For Oklahoma 8/22: Catch Him If You Can 8/21: Running A Reverse 8/20: Big 12 Conference Preview 8/8: Still No Cigar 8/8: Going and Coming 8/8: C-USA Conference Preview 6/17: Pennsylvania Wins Not-So-Big 33 LACROSSE 5/5: Tigers Limp Into Playoffs 4/7: Home, Sweet Home 3/3: Hoyas Hold On For Another Win 2/16: Accelerating Development 2/15: One More Chance For This Mid 2/12: Wildcats Favored For Three in a Row BASKETBALL 3/16: Bubble, Bubble, Teams In Trouble 3/21: Winona State Still Streaking in Postseason 3/19: Cruising to Perfection 1/14: Penn Has The Tempo To a T 1/12: Columbia Thwarts The Three, Downs Princeton FENCING 3/25: A Rematch to Be Remembered 3/23: Columbia Hopes to Take Two CROSS COUNTRY 9/7: Luck Be A Lambie 9/4: Bringing Charm To The Farm 9/4: Breaking In 9/3: Room to Run GOLF 6/13: Looking The Part

The Florida softball team is not interested in waiting around to see if, like wine and cheese, the Gators get better with age. After a record-setting 2007 season, the Gators hope to return to the NCAA Super Regionals for the second straight year and second time in school history - even if there is only one senior on the roster.

The 2007 season was a record-breaking year in Gainesville. The 50-22 Gators rewrote the Florida record books with their number of wins, shut outs (26), team ERA (1.40), reached the championship game of the SEC Tournament and advanced to the Super Regionals for the first time. Having ace All-American Stacey Nelson back in the circle for her junior year certainly helps, but the 11 new faces in the dugout will need some time to adjust.

"Obviously Stacey Nelson had a great year last year, so she's somebody that we're going to be comfortable looking to for leadership," pitching coach Jennifer Rocha said. "The rest of our returners, we're really going to rely on them to help sell it and get these young girls going in the right direction."

Outfielder Mary Ratliff is the Gators' lone senior in 2008, but she will have some help in the leadership department. In addition to the team's two All-Americans, Nelson and junior utility player Kim Waleszonia, five other starters are back from last year, all of whom will have a hand in acclimating the team's nine freshmen and two junior college transfers.

"Yes, we are young, but a lot of these kids have been playing forever," Ratliff said. "I'm a more experienced college player, but these kids know what they're here to do, so the pressure on me is not too much. We have a good corps of returning players, so not a lot falls to me individually."

In fact, the bulk of the pressure should fall squarely not on Ratliff, but on Nelson.

As the team's appointed ace, Nelson will be expected to match - or better - last season's 0.95 ERA (which ranked her No. 6 in the nation). She will have the most responsibility for leading the team through its grueling SEC slate (seven SEC teams were ranked in the NFCA preseason top 25, tied with the Pac-10 for most in the nation) and on through the NCAA tournament.

"With softball, obviously a lot of things start in the circle, so it's good to know we have a quality All-American pitcher coming back," Rocha said.

By Florida standards, quality is an understatement. As a sophomore, Nelson set or tied single season records for wins (34, seventh-best in the nation), saves (5, sixth-best in the nation), appearances (58), starts (42), complete games (37), innings pitched (318.0) and strikeouts (285), to name a few. She pitched 29 consecutive shutout innings in a week-long stretch in May and allowed only four home runs all season.

According to Rocha, that 2007 performance was no fluke.

"She's got the skills to have just as good a season as she did last year," Rocha said. "The challenge for her is game-to-game, not the season as a whole. We just want Stacy to go out and be the very carefree pitcher that she is. With the supporting staff around her, I don't think there's any added pressure for her."

While the team was only two-deep on its pitching staff a year ago, the Gators now have four hurlers to choose from, which would take some pressure off of Nelson, should she allow it.

"There's always a lot of pressure on the pitcher," Nelson said. "I've always thrived on the two outs, runner on third, tie game kind of stuff. That's what you live for and that's what you train for, so I actually enjoy the pressure."

Those who may not be enjoying the pressure are the 11 newcomers who will be vying for playing time deep into pre-conference play.

"In the first three tournaments we'll shuffle a ton and try to give a lot of opportunity to a lot of different people at different positions," coach Tim Walton said. "By the fourth tournament before we get into SEC play, we'll probably start to get a little more set, but we're still going to shuffle a couple."

All of the position shifting and auditioning means the final roster will take some time to gel, but because the team focuses most on the conference and NCAA tournaments, this is one thing the Gators can afford to wait for.

"We're not shooting for being good on Feb. 9," Ratliff said. "We're not shooting for being good in March, either. All that will work its way out in the season. We want to be our best in May and in June, so there are a lot of positions still out there to be won. Nothing is set right now."

Keeping the roster volatile can also work to Florida's advantage, since it's hard to game plan against a player you've never seen.

"Nobody that we're going to play is going to know what we can do," Nelson said. "So our youth can be an advantage."

Like any team sport, softball requires solid team chemistry, which is hard to build when half of the players are new to the university. To give the team a head start on building on-field chemistry, the older players stressed working on their off-field chemistry as soon as the newbies arrived in Gainesville. Eighteen of the team's 19 players live with other team members (the odd player out lives with a former player) and relationship building was stressed throughout the fall, before, during and after workout sessions.

"It helps with our chemistry to be around the girls and get to know them as people as well as players," Nelson said.

While the Gators' season may hinge on Nelson's skills in the circle, the team's ability to produce offensively is also a crucial measure of success.

"We're going to go as far as our bats will take us, being clutch in certain situations and scoring runs," Ratliff said. "Our defense has always been pretty solid, our pitching has always been pretty solid, so if our offense is on, we're going to be okay."

To top last year's superlatives, the team will have to be more than okay, but these green Gators might just have what it takes to get better without age.