BENTONVILLE -- Southern Arkansas had the bats to contend for a Great American Conference softball championship last year, but lacked a quality pitching punch.
Second-year coach Jason Anderson addressed that issue with a pair of transfers, and the Lady Muleriders bring a good left-right combination to the circle when this year's tournament begins today at the Tiger Athletic Complex.
2016 Great American Conference Softball Championships
at Tiger Athletic Complex, Bentonville
Today
Game 1: No. 3 Southeastern Oklahoma State (29-21) vs. No. 6 Henderson State (32-24), 10 a.m.
Game 2: No. 2 Southern Arkansas (41-8) vs. No. 7 East Central (24-29), noon
Game 3: No. 1 Arkansas Tech (44-7) vs. No. 8 Southern Nazarene (27-29), 2 p.m.
Game 4: No. 4 Harding (34-22) vs. No. 5 Arkansas-Monticello (30-26), 4 p.m.
Game 5: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, 6 p.m.%
Game 6: Game 3 loser vs. Game 4 loser, 8 p.m.%
Game 7: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, 6 p.m.
Game 8: Game 3 winner vs. Game 4 winner, 8 p.m.
Friday
Game 9: Game 5 winner vs. Game 8 loser, 11 a.m.
Game 10: Game 6 winner vs. Game 7 loser, 1 p.m.
Game 11: Game 7 winner vs. Game 8 winner, 3 p.m.
Game 12: Game 9 winner vs. Game 10 winner, 5 p.m.
Game 13: Game 12 winner vs. Game 11 loser, 7 p.m.
Saturday
Game 14: Championship, noon
Game 15: Championship Game 2, 2 p.m. (if necessary)
% — Games to be played at Memorial Park
"We can still hit the ball," Anderson said. "But this year we have pitched well, and we're playing defense.
"We're in a much better situation to win it all this year. We've beaten every team in the field at least twice, and we want to prove to everybody that we can win the whole thing."
Left-hander Kimmy Beasley, a fifth-year senior and a transfer from Arkansas, sports a 20-3 record with a 1.11 earned run average, and junior righty Kaylee Garner, a transfer from Texas State, is 21-3 with a 2.09 ERA. They helped Southern Arkansas drop its team ERA down to 1.76, a significant improvement from a 4.99 mark last season.
Meanwhile, the Lady Muleriders' bats remain potent with a .324 team batting average, up from .313 a year ago. As a result, SAU (41-8) -- which is ranked 18th in the NFCA Division II softball coaches poll this week -- reached the 40-win mark for the first time in school history and earned the tournament's No. 2 seed.
"We didn't have the year we were looking for last year," said Anderson, whose team failed to score in last year's tournament and made a quick exit after two losses. "We didn't have the pitching and gave up a lot of runs.
"When the season was done, we concentrated on fixing those problems and bringing back the players we had. All of our players bought in to our common goal, and they have responded well this season."
SAU meets defending tournament champion East Central in the noon first-round game. It's the second of eight games scheduled for today, and that includes two loser's bracket games slated for 6 and 8 p.m. at Memorial Park.
Regular-season champion Arkansas Tech (44-7), which is ranked seventh in the NFCA national poll, draws the top seed in the eight-team, double-elimination affair. The tournament concludes with the championship game at noon Saturday, with a second game slated for 2 p.m. if necessary.
"I think this is obviously the deepest field that we've brought to town," GAC commissioner Will Prewitt said. "You have two teams that are nationally ranked in Arkansas Tech and Southern Arkansas, and they have great opportunities to host regionals.
"Usually you can look at the bracket and say this matchup will be a run-rule game nor not. I think we will have four really competitive games (today.)"
Sports on 04/28/2016