2006 Montana State-Billings Softball Preview 

BILLINGS, MT – Despite what the calendar or weatherman says, if you follow college athletics at all you know spring has arrived.  The Montana State University-Billings softball team has been practicing for the past three weeks and will open their regular season schedule on February 11 with a pair of tournaments in Phoenix.  The Lady Yellowjackets will be in Phoenix for eight days and will play at least nine games.

MSU Billings had a record-setting season last year, posting a 36-14 record and advancing all the way to the semifinals of the NCAA West Regional.  A lot of things have changed since the most successful team in school history walked off the field in Carson, Calif., on May 14.  Nine seniors graduated, including five that earned All-PacWest Conference recognition.  If losing the best class the program has ever produced didn’t create enough uncertainty, the Yellowjackets also moved to a new conference and a new region.

Beginning this season the Yellowjackets will compete in the Heartland Conference, which also jumps them from the NCAA’s West Region to the South Central Region.  Both the new conference and the new region have histories of producing good softball teams.  St. Mary’s University (TX) has dominated the conference and the region for the last several years.  The Rattlers have been the No. 1 seed and host of the South Central Regional for four-straight years and won a national title as recently as 2002.

In the Heartland’s preseason coaches’ poll, the Yellowjackets were picked to finish third behind St. Mary’s and St. Edward’s.  St. Mary’s received 97 points in the poll, making the Rattlers strong favorites to win their sixth conference championship.  The Yellowjackets were just two points behind St. Edward’s at 71 and 69 points respectively.

“We’re excited to join the Heartland Conference,” said Yellowjacket head coach Sean McGary.  “I think we have a chance to jump in and be competitive right away.  A lot of people are looking at this year to be a rebuilding year for us.  I look at it as reloading.  We did lose a lot of quality seniors from last season, so Jeff (Aumend) and I recruited extremely hard and got some really quality kids.  I think we’ll make an impact in the conference.  At least that’s our short term goal.  Obviously our long term goal is to get back where we were last year, being nationally and regionally competitive and making the NCAA Tournament again.”

McGary has been with the program since MSU Billings added softball in 2001.  He was named head coach last summer after former head coach Jeff Aumend accepted the head coaching position at Charleston Southern, an NCAA Division I school in South Carolina.  McGary was Aumend’s top assistant for all five seasons.

Even though the Lady Jackets will compete in a new conference and a new region, fans of the team won’t notice much change in the schedule through the first month of the season.  At the two tournaments in Phoenix, the Yellowjackets will face familiar foes Grand Canyon, Cal State-Dominguez Hills, and Hawaii-Hilo as well as Southern Illinois-Edwardsville.

“I think we have a strong schedule,” said McGary.  “We open up right away with Cal State-Dominguez Hills, who we knocked out of the NCAA Tournament last year.  They’ve got some quality players and it wouldn’t surprise me when the national poll comes out that they’re ranked again.  We’ll find out where we stand right away with the teams we play prior to the Leadoff Classic.  Then at that tournament we play some quality teams.  There are 10 or 12 nationally ranked teams from last year that are going to be down there at that tournament.  We’ve been working hard and stressing hard to the ladies that we’re going to find out where we stand right away.  We’re optimistic.  There are going to be some new experiences, and the players are looking forward to it.”

After the long trip to Phoenix, the Yellowjackets will get about two weeks of rest before they make their annual trip to Richland, Wash., for the Central Washington Invitational.  That trip is a highlight on the schedule for many of the players; eight current Yellowjackets are from Washington or Oregon.  The Jackets will play eight games in four days in Richland, all against teams from the West Region.  Of the Yellowjackets’ first 17 games of the season, 15 will be against teams from their former region.

“With the schedule we have, we might not have as many games against regionally ranked teams as last year, but we have the potential to play a lot of nationally ranked teams,” McGary said.  “We’ve got Cal State-Dominguez Hills at the Phoenix tournament.  We play Humboldt State at the Central Washington tournament.  Seattle will be there and they were really close to making it last year.  So the teams we’ll be facing will give us enough strength of schedule that if we don’t win the conference outright, we might still have the possibility to make the NCAA Tournament.”

Following the tournament in Washington, the Yellowjackets will have three non-conference doubleheader dates before opening the conference schedule.  Their home opener will be March 11 against Dickinson State, a blip on the screen sandwiched between 33 road games.  Their final non-conference games will be March 18 and 19 at Colorado-Colorado Springs.

MSU Billings kicks off the Heartland Conference schedule against former PacWest foe Western New Mexico on March 29 in Silver City, NM.  The Jackets will travel from their four-game set in Silver City straight to San Antonio where they have to play eight conference games in four days.  In a schedule favoring the home teams, the Yellowjackets will play at St. Mary’s on April 1, at Incarnate Word on April 2, at St. Mary’s again on April 3, and at Incarnate Word on April 4. 

The Lady Jackets finally return to the friendly confines of Cenex Stadium on April 7 and 8 to host Oklahoma Panhandle State for a pair of conference doubleheaders.  The Aggies last played in Billings in 2002 when they swept two games from the Jackets before being snowed out on the last day of the season. 

MSU Billings will also host conference opponents St. Edward’s (TX) and Lincoln (MO) in April to round out the thin home schedule.  If they finish in the top four in the league’s regular season standings, the Yellowjackets will travel back to San Antonio for the Heartland Conference Tournament on April 27-29.

With a schedule so loaded with road games, MSU Billings will rely heavily on the few returning players to provide leadership, particularly early in the year.  The 2006 roster includes just seven players who saw action for the Jackets last year.  However, they include all-conference selections Rachel Quarnburg and Christy Wankel. 

Rachel Quarnburg

Quarnburg, a junior first baseman from Billings, batted a school-record .463 last year and was named to the All-West Region first team.  Wankel, a senior outfielder from Great Falls, Mont., batted .340 last season and was named to the NCAA West Region all-tournament team.  Both players hit seven home runs and drove in over 35 RBI apiece.

“We’re really excited about our returning players,” said McGary.  “We have Rachel Quarnburg and Chrity Wankel, two of our top performers from last year, returning.  Rachel was ranked nationally for batting average and is a great player all the way around.  She’s gone through the first part of spring healthy, and she’s ready to go.  She’s been seeing the ball well, so I expect great things from her.

“Christy has been putting in the effort in the off season.  I look for her to maybe hit a few more home runs.  She’s a defensive gem, and after recruiting her and knowing her, she’s going to be one of those hard kids to replace.  Her work ethic is awesome.”

Christy Wankel

Quarnburg and Wankel were both big producers last year at the plate, and both are equally as skilled in the field.  Wankel was one of the best defensive outfielders at the NCAA West Regional last year and covers a lot of ground in both center and left fields.  In addition to Quarnburg and Wankel, McGary thinks he has a solid core of returnees to build around.

“Anna Henderson (Frenchtown, MT), another senior, will help solidify the outfield,” McGary said.  “You can’t forget Jenna Haacke (So., Billings, MT).  Here’s a kid as a freshman that might not have gotten the recognition that she deserved.  She’s going to be good.  This year she’s worked hard on the defensive part of her game.  I’m excited for the potential she’s got. 

“Aysha Maddox (formerly Aysha Blatter, Jr., Richland, WA), what can you say about her?  She plays anywhere you ask her to.  She’s going to catch for us, she’ll start at shortstop, she can play third, she can play second, any position in the outfield.  I joke with her that I may throw her in to pitch so she can say she played all nine positions in college softball.  I can’t stress enough how nice it is to have such a utility player.”

Aysha Maddox

Also returning from last season are Jessica Frank, Cari Dunlap, and Stephanie Rinehart.  Frank, a sophomore from Great Falls, saw spot duty in 26 games.  Dunlap played in 13 games, and Rinehart redshirted.  Joining the seven returnees will be a dozen new faces, nine of which are true freshmen and three of which are transfers.

“Along with those key returning players I think we have some great newcomers,” McGary said of his new recruits.  “We’ve got three young pitchers that we’re kind of pinning a lot of pressure on.  We’ve got good potential if we can just get our pitching to pick up a little.  I think the learning curve with them will be rather quick.  We might take a few lumps early, but I think if we can get the mound presence and be mentally ready, the sky’s the limit.”

All that will be asked of the Jackets’ three freshmen hurlers is to replace PacWest Pitcher of the Year Joey Ehnes.  Arguably the best player to wear a Yellowjacket uniform, Ehnes went 29-11 last season with a 1.48 ERA and 303 strikeouts in 245 innings.  The all-conference and all-region selection graduated with every pitching school record.

Filling Ehnes’s shoes will be Lisa Moore, Rebekah Tsatsa, and Terina Stacks.  All three were playing in high school at this time a year ago.  Moore played at Liberty High School in Bakersfield, Calif.  Tsatsa comes from Eagle High School in Eagle, Ida.  Stacks is from Washougal High School in Washougal, Wash.

Jenna Haacke

Said McGary of the three pitchers, “Lisa throws hard and gets good movement on her rise.  Rebekah and Terina don’t throw as hard, but they get great movement.  I think the combination between the three will be great.”

McGary will count on the three transfers to step in immediately and provide production at the plate and in the field, as long as he can find a place for them in the lineup.  With the graduation of third baseman Sara Hanley and shortstop Cami Rainey from last year’s squad, it appeared that the Jackets might have a huge hole to fill on the left side of the infield.  By the end of fall practice, McGary discovered that he has two solid third basemen.

“Defensively we have the addition of Megan Moeller and Jenna McCartney who will really solidify third base for us.  Both of those kids are defensive gems and offensively can get around.  They’ll be great additions.”

Moeller, a junior from Ontario, Ore., played at Mount Hood CC last year.  McCartney is a junior from Victor, Mont., who played at Utah State.  Moeller was a second team all-conference infielder at Mount Hood last year.  McCartney played in 25 games at Utah State, although she only saw two at bats.  The third transfer McGary has high expectations of is Lorel Palmer, a junior from Ogden, Utah, who was a two-time all region outfielder at Garden City CC.

“One kid I’m pretty excited about is Lorel Palmer,” said McGary.  “She’s a leadoff kid that is such a hard out.  She puts the ball in play every time.  She’s dangerous for stealing bases and is aggressive on the base paths.  She’s one of those kids that you have to be aware of and know where she is at all times.” 

Anna Henderson

So, what can Yellowjacket fans expect to see on the field in 2006.  McGary doesn’t think the 2006 Lady Jackets will be one of the ten best homerun hitting teams in the nation, as they were last year.  But he does believe he has the offensive weapons to be dangerous.

“The difference between last year’s great offensive team and this year’s is we might not hit the ball out of the park as much,” he said.  “But I think we’ll be a bit more aggressive.  We’ll definitely put pressure on teams defensively.  I think that might be our characteristic—line drive, gap ball hitters mixed in with an occasional long ball.  We may have lost the players—a Theresa Campbell or a Layne Pavey—who can hit the ball out of the park on any given at bat, but overall I think we’ll be able to put the ball in play quite a bit more.”