A taste of the NCAA Tournament in 2010 has the Ball State softball team hungry for a return trip.
Losses to Tennessee and Louisville in the 2010 NCAA Tournament has Ball State hoping to build off last season's 43-16 record and make an impact in this year's tournament.
"The biggest thing is, once you get a taste of playing games at that level in the NCAA Tournament, your focus is getting back there," coach Craig Nicholson said. "I don't think we played that bad. We just didn't get any breaks, and we didn't make any breaks for ourselves.
"I think through the offseason that's something the girls have focused on individually and as a team. [We want] to make some amends for what happened last year."
Ball State will start its season Saturday when it plays Belmont in the Austin Peay Tournament in Clarksville, Tenn. It will be the first time in two years Ball State hasn't opened its season with a tournament in Georgia.
Lisa Rozanski, senior outfielder and top returning hitter with a .349 batting average last season, said the tournament experience should help the team this year in terms of what to expect in big games.
"Playing last year against a lot more experienced schools helps us out to know what kind of experience we should be expecting this season," she said. "I think it will help us out a lot and whatever girls that played last year can help the girls that weren't here last year get into that mentality of playing at the next level."
One of the issues facing the Cardinals' road to redemption this year is the loss of star pitcher Elizabeth Milian, who went 32-7 with 306 strikeouts and a 2.00 ERA in 2010.
"I think the big effect losing a player like Elizabeth is its effect on the pitching staff," Nicholson said. "We have some kids that don't have a ton of experience on our pitching staff or this level, so we're going to have four pitchers that are going to have to step up. My guess is that we will be more of a pitching staff this year instead of one person getting the ball in every big game."
Senior third basemen Kate Wilczynski agrees that the team will have to build not only the pitching staff, but other areas as well.
"With the loss of Milian, we have to build on different areas," she said. "We have an amazing pitching staff this year, but we'll also back them up with our run support on offense and our defense as well. I think we're pretty solid all the way around."
The Cardinals have the coaches in the Mid-American Conference believing they will win the MAC West again this season. Ball State was picked as the MAC champion in the preseason poll.
Wilczynski has other thoughts on the preseason predictions.
"I think that's something you can't think about right now," she said. "It's too early in the season, but it is a definite goal we can put down for ourselves right now at the beginning of the season. I think not thinking about it will definitely help us play through what we have now until we reach that point starting conference play."
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