2019 Season Preview

02/05/2019 | 12:41:00 | Softball

The Salukis return eight starters and 13 letter winners from last year's team.

By: Will Becque, SIUSalukis.com

The overall picture for the Southern Illinois University softball team is a bright one, with the return of eight starters, including four who earned all-conference honors a year ago.

The Salukis are coming off a third-straight 30-win season and a second-straight MVC title game appearance. SIU returns a total of 13 letter winners from a squad that went 31-22 in 2018 and added five newcomers in the offseason that will provide depth and lively bats to an already potent lineup.

Infield

The infield, which was one of the best in the MVC a year ago, returns a strong nucleus of four positional players who started all 53 games last season. The quartet of returners is led by Preseason All-MVC selections, Maddy Vermejan and Katelyn Massa. Vermejan, who was also the MVC's Defensive Player of the Year, committed just three errors at second base and led the league in on-base percentage (.474)- which was also the highest for a second baseman in program history. Massa, meanwhile, started 50 games behind the dish for the Salukis and led the Valley in RBIs (48) and tied for second in the league in home runs (11). The junior from Wildwood, Mo. is just the second Saluki catcher in the last 20 years to repeat on the All-MVC First Team.

Kyleigh Decker and Jenny Jansen are also back. Decker started all 53 games at first base and showed considerable pop after she finished third on the team with seven home runs. Jansen, a 2018 All-MVC second team selection, made 39 starts in the outfield and 14 at shortstop as a freshman and hit .329 with eight home runs and 29 RBI. The Warrenton, Mo. native will likely move to the hot corner with the arrival of newcomer Ashley Wood. Wood played her prep ball at Carl Sandburg High School in Orland Park, Ill. where she earned All-State honors after a senior campaign in which she hit .439 with 34 RBI and started all eight fall games at shortstop.

The Salukis will also have considerable options off the bench this season. Sophomore Meredith Wernig pinch-ran in 38 games in 2018 and scored 12 runs. Bailee Pulley, a junior from Johnston City, Ill., appeared in 15 games as a pinch-runner while sophomore Shelby Hodo made 15 starts behind the plate during her freshman campaign. Senior Jordan Spicer appeared in 11 games at first base and designated hitter a year ago while Sidney Sikes, who hit .422 with 14 doubles and 31 RBI as a senior at Grandall High School in Kaufman, Texas , is versatile and played both catcher and third base in the fall.

"What I'm excited about is our depth in the infield," head coach Kerri Blaylock said. "We have three catchers that can catch- Katelyn Massa, Shelby Hodo and Sidney Sikes. Jenny Jansen has moved over to third base as well as centerfield and Sikes can also play third. Our shortstop, Ashley Wood, is as good of a shortstop as I think we have had. She has the arm strength and the range to do a lot of things. Obviously, we also have Vermejan and Decker back on the right side. I feel like we have a lot of options. Then we have Pulley and Wernig that are also in the mix. This is a veteran group that has been around the program for a long time."

On the Mound

The Salukis also return their ace, three-time All-MVC first team selection and 2019 Preseason All-MVC honoree Brianna Jones. Jones is coming off a season in which she went 26-8 with a 2.08 earned run average and 211 strikeouts. The Manchester, Tenn. native will enter the 2019 season in striking distance of virtually every career pitching record and cement her name as one of the all-time great pitchers in school history. She's 18 wins shy of Amy Harre's school-record of 84 and a strikeout shy of becoming just the sixth pitcher in program history with 500-plus strikeouts.

Jones joined an exclusive club following her junior season, as she became the fifth Saluki pitcher in program history to earn three-straight All-MVC First Team selections. Jones joined Jamie Schuttek (1994-97), Carisa Winters (1998-2000), Amy Harre (2002-05) and Cassidy Scoggins (2005-07) as the only Salukis to have done so, and of those four, only Winters has yet to be inducted into the SIU Athletics Hall of Fame.

Jones, who has been the staff workhorse in each of her three seasons in the Maroon and White, will be joined in the circle by a pair of transfers in Claire Miller and Holly Marousek.

"As a pitching staff, this could be one of the best that I've had here in a long time," Blaylock said. "It is probably one of the most complete staffs of my tenure because both of the kids throwing alongside Bri should've already been pitching at the Division I level. Claire was kind of overlooked coming out of high school but is now where she belongs and Holly went the junior college route but both are DI pitchers."

Miller is looking to have a breakout junior season after transferring from NCAA DII Southwest Baptist. A two-time all-conference pitcher for the Bearcats, Miller earned All-Mid American Intercollegiate Athletics Association (MIAA) first team honors in 2018 after she led the conference in both strikeouts and shutouts and also finished top-five in the league in innings pitched (2nd, 195.0), earned run average (3rd, 1.97), fewest hits per nine innings (3rd, 4.85) and opposing batting average (4th, .190).

Marousek comes to SIU as a sophomore after she spent a season at nearby Lake Land College. While at Lake Land, Marousek went an impressive 22-5 with a 2.67 ERA in 34 appearances. With Marousek as their ace, the Lakers went 48-18 and made their seventh trip in eight years to the NJCAA National Tournament.

"All three of our pitchers are extremely unselfish," Blaylock said. "Bri is one of the most unselfish big-time players that you'll ever meet. They are all extremely happy for each other, they all work very well together and that is what makes it work."

Outfield

Six players will fight for playing time in the outfield as Susie Baranski, Maris Boelens, Eyrika Brandenburg, Megan Brown and Jenny Jansen return for the Salukis, joined by junior transfer Nicole Johnson.

Baranski started all but one game in the outfield for Southern a year ago and led the team with three outfield assists. The junior from Chicago Heights, Ill., tallied 11 multi-hit games last season, including four hits in the win over Stony Brook on Feb. 24, 2018. Boelens played in all 53 games as a freshman and finished second to Baranski with two outfield assists. Brandenburg did not play last season but started 54 games in 2017 and hit. 313. As a freshman, she tied for the team lead in hits (51).

Brown hit .302 with runners in scoring position a year ago with two home runs and four doubles and is expected to earn considerable playing time in the outfield after splitting time on the mound, in the outfield and as Southern's designated hitter during her freshman season.

A junior transfer from nearby Rend Lake College, Johnson hit .487 as a sophomore and led the team in hits (74), batting average (.487), slugging percentage (.572) and on-base percentage (.530).

"We are six-deep in the outfield, meaning I could play any of the six of them and I feel totally comfortable with all of them," Blaylock said. "Brandenburg is back and Johnson is a new addition. Megan Brown has always been a great hitter but she has improved her skills tremendously in the outfield. Boelens and Baranski were out there last season and have done it for a long time. And then we have Jansen who can come from the infield and play the outfield. We have a lot of combinations that we can use. It's going to be my job to match them based on either the pitcher we are facing or who is on a roll at that moment."

Schedule

The Salukis will play a 53-game schedule featuring nine opponents that played postseason softball a season ago, including seven who advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

Southern will host 24 games at Charlotte West Stadium while playing on the road 15 times and competing in 14 neutral site contests. Southern will take part in five tournaments, three away from home and two in Carbondale.

SIU will face a challenging schedule that consists of 10 opponents that finished the previous season in the top-100 in the RPI, of which five ranked in the top-50 led by No. 15 Kentucky. Southern's five opponents that finished the previous season ranked in the top-50 of the RPI are its most in a single-season since 2013.

"When you make schedules you just get into tournaments and you don't know who is going to be there," Blaylock said. "So it turned out to be a top-flight schedule. I'm glad that it turned out the way it did because if you bump a couple of those teams off, it sets the tone for our team. Im not into moral victories but if you play well, you get to see where you're at. In 2017 when we won the MVC Championship, we lost to Mississippi State twice early but on our mistakes. So we knew how close we were and how good we could be. I'm looking for us to just compete and see where we are at. We like to take each tournament as its own separate pod and see where we are."

Missouri Valley Conference Outlook

Drake won the regular season and conference tournament title behind All-American pitcher Nicole Newman. The Bulldogs went 45-12 and 24-1 in conference play to advance to the NCAA Tournament, where they won the program's first-ever tournament games.

Southern was one of three teams, along with Drake and Missouri State, to win 30-plus games and post a winning record in conference play. Drake, SIU and Missouri State were picked 1-2-3 in the annual conference preseason poll. Blaylock expects the 2019 conference race to be a battle with multiple teams in the hunt for a championship until the bitter end.

"I think Drake was rightly picked number one (in the preseason poll) because of Nicole Newman and who they have coming back," Blaylock said. "But I also think our goal every year is to win it - we're not gonna back down or shy away. When we faced (Newman) in the conference championship last season we had great at-bats, scored a run and hit the ball hard several times. I think Jen (Sewell) is doing a great job to prepare us for that. But there are eight other teams that we have to be ready for and I respect those other eight teams immensely. We can't be consumed with Drake only- our conference is good, top-to-bottom and we have to be ready to go every game."