{"id":33139,"date":"2014-02-08T10:00:24","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T16:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/?p=33139"},"modified":"2014-09-23T08:26:57","modified_gmt":"2014-09-23T13:26:57","slug":"softball-opens-2014-season-at-fgcu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web20.olemiss.edu\/news\/wordpress\/softball-opens-2014-season-at-fgcu\/","title":{"rendered":"Softball Opens 2014 Season at FGCU"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Freshman<\/a>

Freshman INF\/OF Melina Preciado<\/p><\/div>\n

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 After weeks and months of preparation, the 2014 season has finally arrived for the Ole Miss softball team. The Rebels will head south to Fort Myers, Fla., to the home of Florida Gulf Coast University to compete in the FGCU\/Four Points by Sheraton Invitational.<\/p>\n

Ole Miss begins play at the tournament Friday against Western Kentucky at 1:30 p.m. CT. The Hilltoppers won the Sun Belt Conference regular season championship last season after going 20-3 in league play. WKU enters the 2014 season receiving votes in the preseason USA Today\/NFCA Coaches top 25 and the preseason ESPN.com\/USA Softball top 25. The Rebels will then turn around and play host school Florida Gulf Coast at 3:45 p.m. CT.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get off to a fast start,\u201d Ole Miss head coach Windy Thees said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been swinging the bat a lot because of this horrible weather, so we\u2019ve gotten a lot of extra cuts in the cages. We\u2019ve been able to have a lot of at-bats and swings, so we want to make sure we\u2019re scoring a lot of runs this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur pitchers have done a really good job of developing all of their pitches and all of their pitches at different speeds. The speed differential is what I\u2019m really focusing on this year to take us to the next level as a pitching staff and hopefully bring that ERA down so that if we score four runs we\u2019re going to win no matter what.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Ole Miss will face Georgetown at 9:00 a.m. CT, followed by a matchup against Liberty at 1:30 p.m. CT that same day. The Rebels will close out play in the tournament on Sunday with the opponent and time of game dependent on performance in the tournament.<\/p>\n

The Rebels return eight of nine starters from a year ago, including four of five pitchers and 13 of 16 letterwinners. Ole Miss will be looking to build on its fantastic defense from a year ago where it set a program record with a .979 mark, which ranked fifth nationally.<\/p>\n

With the season finally here, Thees said it\u2019s a funny balance of wishing the season would finally arrive, and then realizing it actually is here.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe preseason is like, \u2018Oh man, this is going on and on,\u2019 and now that the season is here you\u2019re like, \u2018Wait, did we put this in, did we do this, did we do that?\u2019 \u201d said Thees, who is beginning her third season at Ole Miss. \u201cWe\u2019ve gone over our first and third plays, our bunt and slap defense, we\u2019ve gone over cuts, but then in your head you\u2019re like, \u2018Did we go over it enough?\u2019 A few weeks ago you\u2019re like, \u2018Man, can we get the season here?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a coach, the season is great because your players are playing, but your opportunities to teach kind of shrink down. Now you\u2019re just making minor adjustments throughout the season,\u201d Thees said. \u201cNow it\u2019s more about strategizing, preparing for games and teams. It\u2019s a different type of coaching, whereas before it\u2019s actually teaching the game and instructing the players. This is game time, x\u2019s and o\u2019s, putting the right people in and making the right substitutions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ole Miss got off to the second best start in program history through 25 games last season when it began 16-9. The Rebels will look to top that mark this season and continue to re-write the record books under Thees\u2019 tutelage.<\/p>\n

For all Ole Miss softball news and information, go to OleMissSports.com<\/a> and follow the Rebels on Twitter at @OleMissSoftball and on Facebook at Ole Miss Softball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 After weeks and months of preparation, the 2014 season has finally arrived for the Ole Miss softball team. The Rebels will head south to Fort Myers, Fla., to the home of Florida Gulf Coast University to compete in the FGCU\/Four Points by Sheraton Invitational. Ole Miss begins play at the tournamentRead the story …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":33141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nSoftball Opens 2014 Season at FGCU - Ole Miss News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/news.olemiss.edu\/softball-opens-2014-season-at-fgcu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Softball Opens 2014 Season at FGCU - Ole Miss News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 After weeks and months of preparation, the 2014 season has finally arrived for the Ole Miss softball team. 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