At The Plate: The University of Mary Softball team has an early start to the 2016 season as they take flight to Las Vegas, Nev., to compete in the Desert Stinger Hosted by Montana State University-Billings. The Marauders will play five games over the weekend starting on Friday, February 5, and will feature contests against Azusa Pacific University, California State University-Dominguez Hills, the University of Nebraska Kearney, California State University-Monterey Bay, and Concordia University-Irvine.

For The Record: U-Mary finished last year on the outside looking in with a 24-31, 13-16 NSIC record and fell out of contention for the NSIC tournament in the final weekend. Azusa Pacific finished 29-26, 14-17 GNAC last season and own a 1-1 record already on the year; Cal State-Dominguez Hills ended with a 23-29, 16-20 CCAA record in 2015 and missed their conference tourney as well; Nebraska-Kearney struggled through most of the year and finished 19-28, 11-15 MIAA and never had a chance in the conference tourney; Cal State-Monterey Bay owns a 2-0 record so far and finished 2015 with a 47-12, 28-8 CCAA record and ended their season in the NCAA West Regional Tournament with a pair of losses; Concordia-Irvine just made the transistion to the PacWest Conference and spent 2015 unaffiliated with a 50-8 overall record.

In The Past: The Marauders went 2-4 in the 2015 Desert Stinger with wins against the University of Texas-Permian Basin and Lubbock Christian University. Unfortuantely, U-Mary was bested by the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Notre Dame de Namur University, Simon Fraser University, and California State University-San Bernardino with each loss coming by less than three runs.

Last One Up: U-Mary stood in ninth place heading into the final weekend of NSIC play and needed a pair of wins to guarantee a spot in the conference tournament. Alas, they ran into a buzzsaw that was the University of Minnesota Duluth and St. Cloud State University, and the Marauders went 0-4 over the weekend to remain on the outside looking in at the tourney. As if the losses to the Bulldogs weren't enough, St. Cloud State got a perfect game from their pitcher, Kelly Franks, in game one and limited the Marauders to four hits and one run in game two. During the offseason, the Marauders had a changeover as former head coach K.J. Kelley stepped down and U-Mary brought in Kerry Shaw to pick up where she left off.

On Deck: The Marauders will have a break for the next few weeks and resume play when they make another visit to Clermont, Fla., at the end of the month to compete in the Dot Richardson Spring Games. U-Mary made the same trip last year and ended with 20 games over the course of two weeks, but will limit themselves to nine games in this year's trip. The lost games will be made up two weeks later when the Marauders travel to St. Joseph, Mo., to compete in the Regional Crossover hosted by Missouri Western State University.

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