It’s said that the most difficult thing about getting to the top is staying there. This is the adage with which the Binghamton women’s softball team will have to contend in 2016 after winning the America East (AE) Conference Championship for the first time in program history last season. The Bearcats were ranked first in the AE preseason poll on Wednesday by a committee of the league’s head coaches, who were not permitted to vote for their own team.
The Bearcats, who were tabbed to finish third in last season’s poll and entered the conference tournament as the third seed, upset the 2015 preseason favorite, Stony Brook, in the conference championships last May. After being routed by the Seawolves, 16-13, in a second-round game, BU rallied from the losers’ bracket to defeat SBU in the two final rounds of the tournament.
While BU head coach Michelle Burrell was quick to acknowledge the ranking, her focus remains on improving a squad that went 10-6 in conference play last year.
“It’s nice to have that kind of respect from the other coaches in the league because of the hard work that has gone into that,” she said. “But at the same time, we all understand that it’s a preseason ranking and we still have a lot of work to do moving forward.”
Choosing the Bearcats as the predicted top finishers may prove to be a good bet, as the squad returns five AE All-Conference honorees and has lost just one player, shortstop Caytlin Friis, to graduation. Sophomore pitcher Sarah Miller, who was named the Most Outstanding Player for her four-win AE tournament weekend performance and recorded 11 wins on the year, will be a force on the mound for the Bearcats. Joining Miller on the mound will be senior pitcher Cara Martin, who recorded 10 wins last season after transferring from Rhode Island.
Senior catcher Lisa Cadogan, who last season was chosen as a first-team all-region selection for the first time in her career after hitting .425 in 2015, is one of the veteran players that will aim to lead Binghamton to its second-straight AE championship. BU will also look to senior outfielder Sydney Harbaugh, a 2015 first-team All-Conference and AE All-Tournament selection and the 2013-14 AE Player of the Year, to continue adding to her impressive career.
Burrell is confident that the experience level of her players and the team’s victorious trip to the conference tournament last season will give the Bearcats a chance to again contend for the AE title.
“We feel really good about the experience on the team,” Burrell said. “We’ve got some seniors that have been on the field for four years now. I think they learned a lot about what it truly meant to come together and play as a team. That’s going to be something that we hopefully have learned from.”
Binghamton is set to kick off its season on February 19 against UC Santa Barbara.