SE Opens Season with Regional Invite

Softball | 2/5/2016 12:40:00 AM

DURANT, Okla. – Southeastern softball will open up the 2016 season on Feb. 5 as it welcomes nine other teams to the Durant Multi-Sports Complex for the Southeastern Regional Invitational which will run through Feb. 7.
 
The Savage Storm open the season and the invite against Pittsburg State at 12:30 p.m. on Friday, followed by a 3 p.m. matchup with Emporia State.  SE will then face Missouri Southern State at 10 a.m. on Saturday, followed by a 3 p.m. contest with Central Missouri.
 
Southeastern will close out play on Sunday with a 10 a.m. rematch with PSU and finish the weekend with a 12:30 game against former in-state rival Central Oklahoma.
 
The team is coming off its fifth-straight 30-plus win season and returns seven starters from last season's team and will enter the year picked to finish fourth in the Great American Conference preseason softball poll.
 
The Savage Storm finished 32-23 last season with a 24-10 mark in league play, finishing third in the GAC regular season standings.
 
SE finished the vote with 90 points to finish fourth, eight points behind Southern Arkansas who had 98 points and one first-place vote in third, and one point ahead of Arkansas Tech who was picked fifth.
 
East Central is the preseason favorite with 113 points and six first-place votes, while Henderson State is next in line at 104 points with five first-place votes.
 
Harding round out the top half of the poll in sixth with 71 points.
 
Southern Nazarene was picked seventh, followed by Arkansas-Monticello, Northwestern Oklahoma State, Southwestern Oklahoma State, Ouachita Baptist and Oklahoma Baptist.
 
Of SE's seven returning starters from a season ago, five of earned All-GAC honors after last season.
 
Jessica Simmons leads that group as a three-time all-GAC honoree with back-to-back first team selections at second base after hitting .415 last season with 51 runs scored and a league-best 29 stolen bases.
 
She is joined by Sydney Kramer, Courtney Riddle, Laramie Beal and Jessica Seay as returners who were all-conference in 2015.
 
Southeastern also welcomes eight new additions to the club in the spring, six of whom are freshmen.
 
The tournament will welcome three other GAC schools in Southwestern Oklahoma State, Arkansas Tech and Henderson State.
 
HSU enters as the only one of that group picked to finish above the Storm in the preseason poll, finishing second, while ATU was picked fifth and SWOSU was picked 10^th.
 
The MIAA will be sending its top three teams according to the preseason polls in Central Oklahoma, Pittsburg State and Central Missouri.  While Emporia State was picked sixth and Missouri Southern State was 12^th.
 
Oklahoma Christian is the lone Heartland Conference representative and was picked to finish fifth in that league.