Women's softball head coach Jacquie Joseph is her 22nd season in the position and after a recent stretch of disappointing play, she will be looking to get the team back on track.
The Spartans last winning season came in 2007 when MSU posted a record of 33-26, but since 2007 the results have not been favorable.
In 2008 the team went 27-29, they followed that season with a 21-28 record in 2009 and a 21-31 record in 2010. The team rebounded slightly in 2011 going .500 with a 27-27 record, but the team failed to build momentum from its performance in 2011 and finished 2012 with an 11-42 record the lowest amount of wins in Joseph's tenure. 2013 also showed promise as the Spartans finished 24-25, but in 2014 the team regressed again going 12-37.
However the team is returning eight starters and after going 13-52 in Big Ten play in the last three seasons, MSU has nowhere to go but up. The team is also bringing in five freshman including highly touted shortstop and second baseman McKenzie Long from California who was All-State and Third team All-American as a senior in high school.
The Spartans begin the season this weekend in a three-day stretch of five games from Friday to Sunday traveling to Florida for the Stetson tournament. The team will travel to play for most of the first half of the season.
Following the Stetson Tournament, MSU returns to Florida for another five-game stretch the following weekend from Feb. 13 to 15 in the Florida Atlantic Tournament. The weekend after that the Spartans will travel west to California for a four-game weekend in the UC-Riverside Tournament from Feb. 20 to 22.
The weekend after the trip to California the team will make yet another trip to Florida playing four games in the Florida International Tournament from Feb. 28 to March 1. The team returns to Florida one final time in 2015 the next weekend for four games in the Central Florida Tournament from March 7 to 8.
The following weekend the Spartans will play in one more tournament before beginning Big Ten play. From March 13 to 15 MSU will play five games in the Mercer Tournament in Georgia. After the Mercer tournament only 11 of the Spartans 29 remaining regular-season games are on the road.
The team begins Big Ten play against Nebraska on March 20 and the team ends the regular season with Maryland on May 3.
The Big Ten Tournament is from May 7 to 10 and the Women's College World Series begins on May 28.
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