Full Centennial Conference Release
HAVERFORD, Pa. - The Haverford College softball team has been picked fifth in the Centennial Conference preseason coaches poll, the conference office announced in a release on Friday morning. Coaches were not eligible to rank their own programs.
Haverford has reached the championship round of each of the last two iterations of the tournament in 2018 and 2019. The Fords will return five seniors with postseason experience (Maya Casey, Genevieve Dallmeyer-Drennen, Michelle Kaplan, Phoebe May, and Emily Reinstadtler), eager to lift the trophy after getting so close to the pinnacle in their first year campaigns and experiencing the cancellation-roiled 2020 and 2021 seasons.
Washington College (58 voting points, two first place tallies) was picked first, edging out defending champs Gettysburg (51 voting points, four first place votes) despite the Bullets receiving the most first place votes in the yearly forecast. McDaniel was selected third with one first-place nod and 39 points, followed closely by Swarthmore (37), which received the remaining two first-place tallies from coaches. Haverford (33) edged Muhlenberg (32) and Ursinus (31) for the fifth spot, with Franklin & Marshall (23) and Dickinson (20) rounding out the poll. The top four teams will advance to the Centennial Tournament, which will take place on May 3-7.
Softball finished its 2019 campaign with a 28-12 record to come within one victory of breaking the program record which was set in 2014. Haverford went 13-3 in Centennial Conference play during that regular season and advanced to the championship game against Dickinson before falling in 1-0 battles during both contests against the Red Devils. Prior to the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Haverford was riding a six game win streak, capping its week in Florida with a 7-3 record during that shortened campaign.
The Fords embark on the annual Spring Break trip to Central Florida for games beginning on March 6 and spanning through March 11. In that stretch, the Fords will face off with York (Pa.), Alvernia, Messiah, UMass-Dartmouth, Johnson & Wales (R.I.), Penn State Berks, Catholic, Plymouth State, and Bluffton. Contests will be split between Leesburg, Fla. and Clermont, Fla. with all of the action in the greater Orlando area to begin the season.