By Adam Brown
Sports Editor
adam.brown@hottytoddy.com
No. 25 Ole Miss softball returns to the diamond on Friday to start the 2023 season at the Puerto Vallarta College Challenge, in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. All of the Rebels games will be available to stream via FloSotball.
Ole Miss will take the diamond over the next four days against five different opponents in North Carolina, No. 24 Oregon, Wisconsin, No. 3 Oklahoma State and North Dakota State.
Ole Miss will open the Challenge against North Carolina at 8:30 p.m. CT.
The Rebels are coming off a 41-19 mark in 2022 with a run that ended with a loss 9-1 to No. 5 national seeded UCLA at the Los Angeles, California Regional. Last season marked the fourth time in program history to reach the 40-win mark.
On Tuesday, head coach Jamie Trachsel met with media and discussed returning to action.
“We’re excited it’s game week. Been waiting a while to say that,” Trachsel said. “Our team feels like we’ve been ready for a couple of weeks now, and so we’re excited to get on the road here going down to Puerto Vallarta and get everyone in the same dugout.”
This season, the Rebels have 15 players returning from last season, including fifth-year seniors in Mikayla Allee and Tate Whitley.
Whitley led league with 74 hits last season and finished the campaign with 77, the third most in a single season in program history.
Trachsel and her staff added 12 newcomers in four transfers and eight freshmen to play for the red and blue.
“I think they’ve done a great job here, and that starts with our current players who have been here, who are familiar with the Ole Miss campus, our systems, our terminology, we run things and welcoming them and helping them get comfortable with what we do and how we do it and what our standards are to bridge the gap between being new,” Trachsel said. “This is a pretty close team, and they’d all tell you that. They feel close and comfortable with each other, but that started way back in August and September when they first came to campus.”
North Carolina is coming off a 23-28 record during the 2022 season. The Tar Heels have 18 players return to the diamond.
The last time Ole Miss and North Carolina faced off, the Rebels defeated the Tar Heels 7-2 in 2017 to win the Oxford Regional and advance to the program’s first NCAA Super Regional.
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