Spring is Nigh

Rated eighth in national preseason polls, the Minnesota State
Baseball team begins its season Feb. 16th in the Metrodome
with a doubleheader vs. Winona State

While our winter teams (men's and women's basketball, men's and women's hockey, women's swimming and wrestling) hitting their strides, heading towards the conclusion of the regular season and on into the postseason, we must realize that spring is nigh.

We've been extremely fortunate in this part of the country, relative to how the weather gods have been so kind to us.  And it's only now where we've had to don the boots and gloves, grab a shovel and head out to take care of the driveway and sidewalks.

And whereas our fall student-athletes and teams had tremendous success, so has it continued on with men's basketball (currently rated seventh nationally and on the verge of hitting the 20-win mark), women's basketball (16-4 overall and have been ranked as high as 20th), men's hockey (currently ranked 11th, 16-9-3 overall), wrestling (rated 10th, 9-2 on the season), men's indoor track (rated ninth) teams. Women's hockey was rated tenth in the country at one point early in its season and women's swimming and women's indoor track are expected to do well at national meets as well, with qualifiers racking up team points.

This leads into the spring season where our women's tennis team has already started things off by earning a Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference win over Northern State last Saturday.

The Maverick Baseball team, which is coming off a third-place national finish in 2012 and rated eighth in preseason polls by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association and Collegiate Baseball Magazine, officially kicks off its season Feb. 16th in the Metrodome. MSU Softball, under the guidance of Hall of Famer Lori Meyer, was 49-10 a year ago and enters 2013 rated #6 in the National Fastpitch Coaches Association preseason rankings and starts Feb. 15 with a pair of games in Tucson, Ariz.

That leaves men's and women's outdoor track & field and men's and women's golf - four MSU sports that traditionally do extremely well at conference and national competitions. Spring break, which runs from March 11-15 this year, is typically the line of delineation for those seasons to kick in.

As Carly Simon sings in Anticipation..."We can never know about the days to come, But we think about them anyway."

It's great to be a Maverick.