Sept. 17, 2008

2009 Softball Schedule

DAYTON, Ohio - Head Coach Cara Clark announced the 2009 University of Dayton softball schedule, which features four road tournaments and road trips to eight different states during the 2009 campaign: Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Texas.

"Our schedule includes several competitive tournaments that will provide many strong opponents," said Clark. "The combination of early tournaments and strong non-conference schedule should provide the level of play that we need in order to meet our goals."

The Flyers start 2009 with four consecutive road tournaments, opening with the UNI Dome Tourney (Feb. 7-8) at the multi-purpose, Astroturf domed stadium in Cedar Falls, Iowa. The tournament field includes Dayton, North Dakota, Northern Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota State. The Flyers also opened the 2008 season at the UNI Dome Tourney.

"We again open our season at the UNI-Dome tourney," said Clark. "This allows us to begin in early February for the second consecutive year."

UD will then head south to Corpus Christi, Texas to play in the three-day Islander Invitational hosted by Texas A&M Corpus Christi from Feb. 20-22. The Flyers will face Pittsburgh, Loyola, Minnesota and the host Islanders. They will follow that with a trip to Chattanooga, Tenn. where they will compete in the Frost Classic (Feb. 27-March 1) against the Big Ten conference's Indiana, NCAA qualifier Princeton and the hosts, Chattanooga. The Flyers will play in their final regular season tournament, the Comfort Inn Softball Classic (March 7-8), in Morehead, Ky. facing Morehead State, Oakland and Wright State.

"The strength of our schedule includes Big 10 and Big 12 opponents, which have not been on the Dayton calendar in four years," said Clark.

Dayton's home opener will be Wednesday, March 18 against Indiana State at the UD Softball Stadium. The Flyers will also break into Atlantic 10 play that weekend, hosting Rhode Island (March 20-21) and the 2008 A-10 Champion Massachusetts (March 22) at Athletes in Action in Xenia, Ohio.

UD will also host Ohio (April 1) and IUPUI (April 21) in non-conference action. The Flyers will play non-conference games on the road against Butler (March 26), IPFW (March 31), Wright State (April 13) and Ball State (April 14).

Dayton will also host George Washington (April 11) and Charlotte (May 2) at UD Softball Stadium in A-10 action. The Flyers' conference road schedules includes: Saint Louis (March 28), St. Bonaventure (April 4), LaSalle (April 17-18), Fordham (April 19), Temple (April 24-25) and St. Joseph's (April 26).

"Our goal is to continue to improve in order to peak during the conference portion of our schedule," said Clark.

In her first season at the helm Clark guided the 2008 edition of the Flyers to their first 20-win campaign in three years and more than doubled their Atlantic 10 win total from the 2007 season. In addition, Clark's 20 wins was the most by any first-year head coach at UD.

The top six teams in the 11-team Atlantic 10 will qualify for the Championship, which is scheduled for May 6-9 and will be hosted by Fordham University at Bahoshy Field in Bronx, NY.