SFCC Softball Season Preview

The State Fair Community College (SFCC) Lady Roadrunners softball team is preparing for the upcoming season. Head Coach Michele Rupard is pleased with the team's practice sessions.

"Practices have been going well," Rupard said. "Everybody seems really enthused to be back and ready to go. It has been nice to have some momentum build up in this weird period of being inside."

Rupard noted the team's improvement since the fall season.

"We came back in decent shape," she said. "No one is complaining about the work capacity that we are giving them right now. We've been able to do almost everything that we have wanted to do from a physical standpoint to try to jumpstart them into our season."

The Lady Roadrunners will adopt a different style of play this season.

"I don't think we are going to hit the ball over the fence as many times this year," Rupard said. "Hopefully, we'll be able to string some hits together. We've been putting a lot of focus on putting the ball in play and making sure that we're not just giving easy outs at the plate and striking out as often so that we can create more opportunities on offense to score."

Leadership is expected to come from the sophomore class.

"We have a good group of returners who had the opportunity to play quite a bit last year," Rupard said. "Bailey Haselhorst (Kansas City, Missouri) led us offensively, so hopefully she can continue that this season. Jordan Crooks (Leeton, Missouri) had a lot of playing time in the outfield last year; we are looking for her to be a leader out there. We also have some returners on the infield like Myla Inman (Washington, Missouri) and Emily Burke (Cole Camp, Missouri). They will both see playing time on the infield as they did last year. We also have a couple of returners, Danika Sickle (Grain Valley, Missouri) and Kiara Sodini (Lee's Summit, Missouri), who didn't see as much playing time last year as they would have liked because of injuries. They will both be offensive leaders for us this year."

The team will rely on new faces in the pitching circle.

"Kiara Sodini is our only returning pitcher," Rupard said. "Valerie Meyer (Hughesville, Missouri) will have to step up for us along with Courtney Dehn (Dearborn, Missouri) and Jenna Herald (Monett, Missouri)."

The Lady Roadrunners will also need help from Carley Conrad (Edwardsville, Illinois) in the outfield.

SFCC faces a demanding non-region schedule to prepare for the challenging Region 16 slate.

The season opens on Feb. 14-15 at the Branson Junior College Jam with four games. The following weekend, SFCC will travel to the Fort Scott Tournament for four more games.

The home opener is a doubleheader against Independence Community College on Tuesday, Feb. 25, with the first pitch at 1 p.m. Region 16 play begins against Missouri State University-West Plains on Tuesday, March 4.

Over spring break, SFCC will play six games in the Space Coast Spring Games in Florida.

"We are taking a spring break trip this year, which is great," Rupard said. "We are in three tournaments this year, including two early in the season and then one over spring break. I think we will be playing about six ranked teams. It will be an interesting challenge for the girls. We go to Branson early and play a ranked team in that tournament. We play a ranked team at Fort Scott the next weekend and play another ranked team there and a team that should be ranked in Fort Scott. Fort Scott went to the national tournament last year. We will play a very good Bryant and Stratton College team twice in Florida."

The home portion of the regular season concludes with a doubleheader against North Central Missouri College on Saturday, April 12. The regular-season schedule ends at Three Rivers Community College on Friday, April 18.

"Region 16 will be super interesting," Rupard said. "There are quite a few new coaches. I expect Three Rivers to be competitive. Jefferson will be competitive; those coaches have been there for a while. North Central will always be a scrappy team. Our main goal is to be in the top four in the Region so we can host another Sub-Regional. It is up to us if we advance to the final four after that."

Rupard has additional goals for the season.

"I would like to finish above .500 in the Region," she said. "I would also like to have a .500 record this season overall. Finishing over .500 in the Region should really put us in a good spot to host, which is the most important thing for us."

David Rohrbach
SFCC Athletics