The Southwestern University Pirates softball team was voted second in the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference SCAC annual preseason coaches' poll.

Coming off a program best 35-win season in which the Pirates climbed as high as No. 22 in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) polls, Southwestern finished with 42 points, trailing only the defending national champion Texas Lutheran University Bulldogs, who received all seven first-place votes for a total of 49 votes.

Trinity, who is looking for its first 20-win season since 2016, checked in at third with 28 points. Centenary, which has advanced to the conference tournament semifinals in three of the past four years, rounds out the top four with 27 points. Schreiner posted its third-straight 17-plus win season to close out the top five with 22 points, followed by Dallas with 17 and Austin College with 11.

Southwestern enters the season under the guidance of first-year head coach Emerald Doria and returns four members of the All-SCAC First and Second Team with Sydney Scott, Lindsey Longuet, Maddie Mefford, and Jordan Farber.

Longuet is the reigning SCAC Pitcher of the Year, finishing last season with a 16-3 record with a 1.67 ERA and 100 strikeouts in 24 appearances.

Since the SCAC began sponsoring softball as a championship sport in 1999, seven different teams have claimed conference championships. Trinity leads the way in that grouping with seven titles (1999, 2000-02, 2005-07), while Texas Lutheran is currently second with six (2014-19). DePauw captured three (2008-09, 2011), Southwestern two (2010, 2013) and Millsaps (2003), Univ. of the South-Sewanee (2004) and Birmingham-Southern have each secured one title.

The Pirates begin their season on Wednesday, Feb. 12 with a home doubleheader against Cal Lutheran at 10 a.m. and 12 p.m. The 2020 SCAC Softball Tournament will be hosted by Schreiner University beginning on Friday, April 24.