MONTREAT, NC (January 26, 2009) --  The Appalachian Athletic Conference released the pre-season poll for softball on Friday.  Milligan College edges two other AAC schools in the coaches pre-season poll with 66 points and four first place votes to lead the poll over UVA-Wise and Union Colleges.

Tennessee Wesleyan was in fourth with 48 points.

UVA-Wise had 65 points with 3 first place votes and Union 64 points and two first place votes.

Montreat was picked eighth, which is the same position they finished in the 2008 regular season (4-12 AAC and 12-34 overall).  The Lady Cavs had a strong performance in the AAC tournament winning four games to make it to the semifinals where they lost to Milligan College.

First-year Montreat head softball coach, Lee Swanson is optimisitic about the Lady Cavaliers' 2009 season despite the 8th selection in the pre-season poll.  "Hopefully our players will use this as amotivating factor with the season just about to begin. We have worked extremely hard as a team and and all of us have set our goals considerably higher."

Senior catcher Mandi Pike is not too worried about the pre-season pick.  The conference sees us losing four good pitchers and having a disappointing 2008 season, so we as a team are not suprised by the selection.  As a team, we are not focused on how we are ranked at the beginning of the season, but where we'll finish. We've got the team to surprise a lot of people.

 

School	Points
Milligan(4)	66
UVA-Wise(3)	65
Union(2)	64
Tennessee Wesleyan	48
King	40
Covenant	37
Virginia Intermont	35
Montreat	24
Bluefield	17