Softball Ranked in Both Preseason Polls

ESPN.com/USA Softball
USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Poll

The Ragin' Cajuns softball team will begin the 2012 campaign nationally ranked as the polls were released Tuesday morning. Louisiana comes in ranked No. 23 in the USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 poll and No. 24 in the ESPN.com/Softball poll.

The Cajuns received 95 votes in the USA Today/ NCFA Division I Top 25 poll which are voted by Division I head coaches, and 52 votes in the ESPN.com/USA Softball poll.

The squad is coming off a year in which they finished 51-11 and returned to the NCAA Regionals for the 13^th consecutive year. The Ragin' Cajuns are the defending Sun Belt champions and have won the conference regular season championship 10 of the past 11 years.

Louisiana returns almost its entire roster from last year with the exception of Third Team All-American Gabrielle Bridges. UL returns 15 letterwinners and eight position starters from the 2011 squad which finished the year as the nation's top offense with a school and Sun Belt record 481 runs, giving them an average of 7.76 per game.

The Ragin' Cajuns feature Christi Orgeron, who was a USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year Finalist and member of Team USA who won the gold medal at the World Cup of Softball in Oklahoma City in July and the Pan American Games in October. Orgeron, a Third Team All-American, became the fourth person in NCAA history with 100 RBI in 2011 and led the Cajuns with a .414 batting average and 23 homeruns.

Shortstop Nerissa Myers also returns in 2012, a year after leading the Cajuns and tying a UL and Sun Belt record with 77 runs scored. The speedy shortstop reached base in all but four games for the Cajuns, posting a .498 on base percentage. Myers gives Louisiana great range up the middle with an impressive .974 fielding percentage, committing only five errors in 194 chances.

Ashley Brignac will be in the circle once again in 2012 after winning the Sun Belt Pitcher of the Year and Capital One Academic All-American of the Year in 2011. Brignac enters the year just five wins shy of the Cajuns career Top 5 list in pitching victories. She needs just 142 strikeouts to move into second place all-time, and would need to amass 322 to join Brooke Mitchell as the only Cajun's pitchers to reach 1,000 career strikeouts.

Louisiana opens up the 2012 season on Feb. 10 against Rutgers as they host the 26^th Annual Louisiana Classics at Lamson Park in Lafayette, La. The tournament field also includes Mississippi Valley State and Tulsa.

-- Ragin' Cajuns --

University of Louisiana at Lafayette Athletics

Softball Ranked in Both Preseason Polls

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