Courtesy Rich Lam/UBC Athletics

Practice five days a week, weight training three days a week and no one to play until now.

The UBC women’s softball team expects all of their hard work to pay dividends in the upcoming season.

“I definitely think that we’ll be dominant,” said team captain Jesslyn Hodge. Her coach, Phil Thom, and teammates share her high expectations.

“This year we have four good pitchers so we expect to be very competitive,” said Thom, but he added that the T-Birds will have their work cut out for them. “It’s tough this year, because we’ll face some very tough teams. We play 12 or 15 games against teams ranked in the top 15 in the nation.

“We’re going to play Oregon Tech twice this year, they’re the defending national champions. Later on, we’ll play San Marcos and they’re the No. 2 ranked team in the nation.”

Now that their biggest rival, SFU, has moved on to the NCAA, the Thunderbirds are the only Canadian team left in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). In addition to the prospect of facing a number of top-ranked opponents, the team also faces a gruelling travel schedule. Of their 44 games on the calendar, 36 of them are on the road.  Incredibly, this will be an improvement over the past two seasons, as the team has only played one home game during its varsity existence.

While the amount of travel is demanding, it creates incredible team chemistry.

“We bus almost everywhere this year, to Idaho, California, but honestly it’s one of the best parts of the season,” said Hodge. “It makes the team closer and I think it makes us play better on the field as well.”

“The road trips are awesome,” said third-year pitcher Nicole Day. “It’s really what builds team chemistry and character.”

Team chemistry will be important as 7 new faces were added to the 16 player roster. Thom, who has been with the team since its inception in 2009, expects a lot from Hodge, Day and the rest of his returning cast, and is also excited by what his new recruits have to offer. He hopes that the fresh faces contribute to and complement a team that has traditionally been strong defensively.

“We’ve always had really good defence. Hopefully our batting comes through and our defence will hold the other teams, and keep us in it,” said Thom.

Despite all the obstacles the team faces, including still not having their own field to play on, Thom has lofty goals for his team, which has qualified for regionals in both of its two years as a varsity sport.

“The goal for this season is to win enough games to qualify for regionals. To get ranked in the top 25 would be a great goal for us too, and show that the kids are improving,” Thom said. “We hope that down the road we can win a regional and qualify for a national.”

“Being in our third year, we definitely have increased expectations, but you have to remember we’re a relatively new team,” said Hodge. “We had an over .500 record last season, in our second season, which was huge. Hopefully we can build on that and get an even better record this year. We’ll be playing a lot of top ten teams, which will be a real test for us, but it’ll be good because when we’re on our A game we can give them a run for their money.”

“I think we’re going to have a really good season,” said Day. “We have a really strong program. We work together really well. We train really hard all year and everyone is excited for the season.”

The UBC softball team will face Simpson University today in Reddit, California.

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