Austin Peay Lady Govs Softball 2013 Schedule includes Three tournaments, five NCAA participants

APSU Sports: Austin Peay Softball

Clarksville, TN – Austin Peay State University’s softball team will play three in-season tournaments, including games against five teams that qualified for the 2012 NCAA Softball Championship, to highlight its 2013 slate, released Thursday by first-year head coach Stephanie Paris.

The Lady Govs, who finished 19-31 and 10-20 in Ohio Valley Conference play in 2012, will participate in tournaments at Auburn (February 9th-10th), Evansville (March 2nd-3rd) and Louisville (March 8th-10th) during the season’s first four weeks of the season. Among the teams featured in the tournament fields will be Louisville, Auburn, Illinois State and Miami (Ohio), all whom played in the postseason last season.

“A couple of the tournaments Senior Women’s Administrator (Cheryl) Holt confirmed before I accepted the job,” Paris said. “The Louisville tournament she confirmed the week before I got hired and the Auburn tournament was already in place, it wasn’t confirmed, but I had all of the information that the coach sent me so we confirmed it.

“As for the Evansville tournament, the coach (Mark Redburn) is a good friend of mine and he asked if we wanted to get in it after I got the job.”

Sandwiched in-between these early tournament appearances will be a road doubleheader at Trevecca (February 16th) and a home-opener versus Alabama A&M (February 26th).

The Lady Govs will also have non-conference doubleheader at home versus Lipscomb (March 13th) and a road single game at Middle Tennessee (March 27th).

Austin Peay opens OVC play, March 16th-17th, at Cheryl Holt Field versus Eastern Illinois, with other home conference games versus Morehead State (April 6th), Eastern Kentucky (April 7th), SIU Edwardsville (April (13th-14th) and Southeast Missouri (April 27th-28th).

Road OVC games for Austin Peay will be against Jacksonville State (March 23rd), Tennessee Tech (March 24th), Tennessee Martin (March 29-30th), Belmont (April 20th), Tennessee State (April 21st) and Murray State (May 4th-5th).

“The conference is going to be the highlight of our competition,” Paris said. “I think we have a chance to do better than they have been doing here, because they are buying into what we’re doing here and moving in the right direction.”

The OVC Championship tournament will be at the home of the regular-season champion, May 8th-11th.

“Right now I’m focused on the direction of the program here,” Paris said. “I think the last fall series against Memphis the girls really showed signs of competing well, not giving in and just being a little bit more relaxed.

“We’re just trying to get them focused on some of the little things we’re trying to do and change here.”

The Lady Govs 2013 Schedule.