Softball Opens 2013 Season Friday At Fresno State Kickoff Tournament

Friday, February 8

Fresno, CA

2:00 pm

UC Riverside

Southern Mississippi

Photo by: Gabriel L. Acosta

Softball Opens 2013 Season Friday At Fresno State Kickoff Tournament

2/6/2013 2:22:00 PM | Softball

Watch the 2013 season preview video of UCR Softball now.

Fresno, CA—The UC Riverside Softball Team opens the 2013 season this weekend traveling to the Fresno State Kickoff Tournament. The Highlanders open competition on Friday, February 8 facing off against Southern Mississippi at 2 pm PT before playing the host Bulldogs at 7 pm.

On Saturday, UCR has another pair of games, facing Sacramento State at 11:15 am and UTEP at 3:45 pm. The tournament concludes with another game against UTEP on Sunday at 9:00 am.

Friday's matchup against Southern Miss will be the first-ever between these teams in the Highlanders Division I history. Meanwhile, UCR is 0-8 against Fresno State and 5-8 vs Sacramento State since the 2002 season, but owns a 2-0 record against UTEP.

Live coverage of the tournament may be found by clicking here.

Highlanders at Fresno State Kickoff Tournament Game Capsules
	UC Riverside	Southern Mississippi	Fresno State	Sacramento State	UTEP
2012 Record & Stats	25-28	13-34	36-23	27-19	16-37
2013 Record & Stats	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0	0-0
	Roster	Roster	Roster	Roster	Roster
	Schedule	Schedule	Schedule	Schedule	Schedule
Conference	Big West	Conference USA	Mountain West	Big Sky	Conference USA
Current Streak	W 2	L 8	L 1	W 2	L 1
Most Recent Box Score	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Next Opponent	2/15 vs Oklahoma	2/12 at Baylor	2/15 vs Missouri	2/12 vs Pacific	2/12 at New Mexico State
Top Returning Hitter (2012 stats)	Kayla White Senior .329 BA	Caroline Walker Sophomore .336 BA	Brooke Ortiz Junior .312 BA	Kelli Frye Senior .348 BA	Kayla Oranger Senior .346 BA
Top Returning Pitcher (2012 stats)	Taylor Alvarez Sophomore 3.95 ERA 9-6 Record	Beth Dietrich Senior 3.62 ERA 7-16 Record	Destinee Levesque Sophomore 5.06 ERA 1-0 Record	Taylor Stroud Junior 2.55 ERA 14-9 Record	Colleen Hohman Junior 5.97 ERA 6-19 Record
DI Record vs.		0-0	0-8	5-8	2-0
DI Current Streak vs.		First Meeting	L 8	L 2	W 2

GAME NOTES
BREAKING RECORDS
UCR finished the 2012 season with a 25-28 overall record, setting a new program Division I mark for most wins in a season and for best winning percentage.

Best Winning Pct. (DI)
.472	2012
.449	2006
.407	2010

Most Wins (DI)
25 x	2012
22	2006
22	2010

BRINGING OUT THE BROOMS
The Highlanders sweep of Cal State Northridge on May 5-6, 2012 was the first such sweep over the Matadors in the team's Division I history. The sweep was also the first for UCR in conference play since taking a three-game series from Sacramento State on May 4-5, 2002.

SHOWING NO MERCY
UCR won six games last year by the eight-run mercy-rule—the most times in the program's DI history.

BATTER UP
UCR finished the 2012 season with a team batting average of .281— the highest single-season average in the team's Division I history, besting the 2011 squad with a .276 batting average.

CATCH ME IF YOU CAN
The Highlanders stole 73 bases in 2012, 10 more than the program's previous DI record of 63 set in 2011.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE A YEAR MAKES
The Highlanders won 13 games in 2011, but nearly doubled that win total in 2012 with 25 victories.

OFF THE CHARTS
UC Riverside's 16 runs against Eastern Kentucky on March 7, 2012 are the most in the Division I history of the program for a single-game total. The previous high was 15, set at Utah State on May 3, 2003.

CONFERENCE DIVAS
The Highlanders led the Big West Conference last season in triples, stolen bases, and steal attempts while ranking second in batting average, slugging percentage, on base percentage, and RBI. On the national scale, UC Riverside ranked 12th in double plays per game and 44th in both triples per game and stolen bases per game.

COACHING CHANGES
UC Riverside welcomes an entirely new coaching staff to the dugout in 2013. Head Coach Linda Garza was hired in June to lead the program, and named Jodie Cox and Chez Sievers as assistant coaches and Morgan Stuart as a volunteer coach.

ALL-BIG WEST
Four UC Riverside players were selected to the Big West All-Conference Team last season, with outfielder Kayla White garnering All-Big West First-Team awards while Alexis Pickett was selected to the Second Team, and Ariel Shore and Kaylie Atkinson both received Honorable Mention accolades.