Setting the tone

The Georgia College & State University softball team hopes that their season-long dominance carries them to their goal this weekend.

The GC&SU Lady Bobcats softball team will challenge for the 2003 Peach Belt Conference Tournament Championship this weekend at Citizen’s Park in Aiken, South Carolina.

The Lady Bobcats enter the tournament as the No.2 seed, and will begin to play Friday at 2 p.m. against the winner of the first round match-up between No.10 seed Lander and No.7 seed University of South Carolina Spartanburg.

During the regular season, the team posted an overall record of 32-4 and 12-4 in the PBC, and a tournament championship would give the Lady Bobcats an automatic bid to the NCAA Division II South Atlantic Regional.

Head Coach, Windy Thees, feels very confident about the team’s chances in the tournament.

“The only team that can beat us is ourselves, right now,” said Thees. “If we don’t go all the way, it will just be because we beat ourselves, not because some other team came out there and beat us.”

Thees credited the excellence of her freshman players as one of the reasons for this season’s success, and freshman outfielder Aundrea Baker knows that they must perform as they have all season to achieve their goal.

“I know a lot of people are out to beat us because we made a tremendous comeback from last year, and a lot of people are out to shut us down,” said Baker. “Who cares if they’re ranked No. 1 or No. 10? We have to beat them both, just as bad.”

Kelly Zeilstra returns for her second year on the coaching staff after two strong years of playing for the University of Iowa. In 2000, her team won the Big 10 championship and advanced to the NCAA Regionals. Kelly was the MVP at the NIC Tournament and was named to the 3rd Team All Big-Ten Team in 1999. Kelly earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Elementary Education in 2000.

Before her career at Iowa, Kelly played at Lake City Community College, where she was named the Florida Junior College player of the year in 1998 and was an NJCAA first team All-American.

Kelly was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She has a list of accomplishments from her playing days in Canada which include five Provincial Championships, a gold medal in the Canadian Summer Games and a Canadian National Championship. She was also a three-time alternate on the Canadian National Team before becoming a member of the team and playing in 2001 and 2002. This team won a silver medal in the PanAm Qualifier. Her Goal is to play for Team Canada in the Olympic Games. Kelly is currently pursuing her Masters in PE and Health at GC&SU.

- Sports Information Director, Brad Muller, contributed to this article.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Apr 18 2003. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry