{"id":63573,"date":"2022-02-23T08:14:37","date_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:14:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63573"},"modified":"2022-02-23T08:14:39","modified_gmt":"2022-02-23T14:14:39","slug":"fhsu-softball-season-kicks-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=63573","title":{"rendered":"FHSU softball season kicks off"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By DYLAN SWIHART<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>INF 240<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After going 1-4 each of the first two weekends of the season, the\nFort Hays State University softball team improved by splitting a four-game set\nat the Edmond (Okla.) Tournament last weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tigers grabbed wins against Arkansas Tech and East Central to\nimprove to 4-8 overall this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team is set with a young roster with 14 freshmen this year.\nThere are only two seniors, Jessica Espinoza and Sara Breckbill. The team\ngraduated 10 seniors last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adrian Pilkington, head coach of the team, is looking to build off\nlast season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe are starting a lot of young kids, which is nice for our\nfuture,\u201d the eighth-year coach said. \u201cWe will have a lot of talent coming\nthrough our program.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last season looked promising for the Tigers in the conference,\ngoing 17-9 in MIAA play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe were contending there in the top half, with a chance at first,\nuntil the last weekend out,\u201d Pilkington said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The team has its eyes set for the top spot in the conference after\ncoming up short last season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Breckbill is a key returning player for the team. She is a\nthree-time all-conference player for the Tigers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited to see how (the freshmen) do,\u201d said Breckbill, who is\nhitting .270 through the first 12 games and has a team-high three home runs. \u201cI\nthink we have a lot of talent on the team.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She said this year\u2019s squad has a different feel to it from last\nyear\u2019s senior-laden team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a lot different of a dynamic than it was last year,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cLast year, there was a lot more leadership. This year, there are a lot\nof younger girls that need our leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Freshman Lindsey Kelly has been the Tigers\u2019 top offensive power early\nthis season. She is hitting .489 entering the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>FHSU is scheduled to play six games this weekend at the Topeka\ntournament, starting with a pair of games Friday. It is the start of 10\nstraight games in Topeka against non-conference opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MIAA play begins March 11 at Northwest Missouri State University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By DYLAN SWIHART INF 240 After going 1-4 each of the first two weekends of the season, the Fort Hays State University softball team improved&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4541,7349],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-softball-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/softball-724379_1920.jpg?fit=1920%2C1285&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63574,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63573\/revisions\/63574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/63270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}