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NFCA Preseason Top 25 Coaches’ Poll
 University of Southern Indiana Softball begins the 2017 season in February receiving consideration for the National Fastpitch Coaches Association Preseason Top 25 Poll.
USI, which is essentially 30th with nine votes, returns seven position starters and three pitchers off a team that went 35-21 overall and 21-9 in the Great Lakes Valley Conference a year ago.
Included in that list of returning players are five All-GLVC honorees, two All-Region performers and the reigning GLVC Player of the Year in senior All-American catcher Haley Hodges (Portage, Indiana).
Hodges, who was named first-team All-America by Herosports.com, the NFCA and the Division II Conference Commissioners Association, is coming off a historic 2016 season that saw her set single-season school records for home runs (22), RBIs (72), walks (45) and runs scored (58).
Surrounding Hodges in the lineup is a first-team All-GLVC outfielder in sophomore Olivia Clark-Kittleson (Carbondale, Illinois), a pair of second-team All-GLVC honorees in junior first baseman Marleah Fossett (Brownsburg, Indiana) and sophomore designated player/pitcher/outfielder Caitlyn Bradley (Forest, Indiana), and a third-team All-GLVC shortstop in senior Lexi Reese (Lebanon, Indiana).
Clark-Kittleson hit .351 with nine RBIs and 18 runs scored before injury cut her 2016 season short. Fossett hit .336 with 11 doubles, six home runs and 37 RBIs, while Bradley hit .300 with 12 doubles, a triple, two home runs and 23 RBIs in her first year of collegiate softball. Bradley also earned All-Midwest Region honors a year ago.
Reese had a huge year for USI as a junior when she hit .326 with 16 doubles, 10 home runs and 40 RBIs.
In the pitcher’s circle, the Eagles return Bradley and fellow sophomores Haylee Smith (Florence, Kentucky) and Courtney Atkisson (Bringhurst, Indiana). Smith led the Eagles with a 2.91 ERA and 11 complete games as a freshman, while Bradley went 6-3 with a 3.04 ERA.
Atkisson is coming off a strong fall campaign that saw the emergence of freshman pitcher Jennifer Leonhardt (Louisville, Kentucky). Leonhardt earned third-team All-State honors as a senior after posting a 2.40 ERA and 250 strikeouts during her senior season.
USI opens the year February 14 when it travels to Florence, Alabama, to take on defending NCAA Division II champion and preseason No. 1 University of North Alabama.
The Eagles also are slated to play preseason No. 6 Grand Valley State University March 6 at The Spring Games in Clermont, Florida, while the University of Indianapolis (No. 16) and the University of Missouri-St. Louis (No. 23) are the only GLVC teams to open the year in the NFCA Top 25 preseason poll.
Following their doubleheader with North Alabama, the Eagles host the Midwest Region Crossover February 24-26 at Deaconess Sports Park in Evansville. USI opens its home schedule March 15 with a doubleheader against Midwest Region foe Kentucky Wesleyan College.
