The Saint Vincent softball team is coming off a first-place regular season performance in the Presidents' Athletic Conference, a season during which the team posted a 13-5 PAC record and a solid 16-4 home record.
 
This year, many of the team's top players return, including all five All-Conference selections.
 
Heading the list is junior righthander Ally Vrcek, who lead the PAC with a 1.30 ERA last year.  In 81 innings, she held opponents to a .210 batting average and posted 112 strikeouts.  She appeared in 18 games with 11 starts in her first year at Saint Vincent after transferring in from Philadelphia. 
 
Also on that All-PAC First Team last year was Shannon Baczek, who will be a sophomore this year.  Baczek led the Bearcats with a .365 average, just two shy of the all-time single season team record.  A first baseman, Baczek also posted a perfect 1.000 fielding percentage from 321 chances.
 
Earning second team All-PAC honors last year were Maria Adams, Emily Lauterbach and Becky Deane.
 
Adams, who will be a starter for the fourth straight year, was the team's main catcher, but also appeared at first base in a few games.  A two-time all-conference pick, Adams batted .342 and started all 40 games.  Fellow senior Lauterbach had the best season of her Bearcat career  in 2012.  She didn't allow a single earned run in her first 44 innings of the year, and finished with a 10-4 record in 22 appearances.  She struck out 42 in 87.1 innings and posted a 1.52 ERA for the year.
 
Deane, a junior this season, has been an All-PAC performer each of her first two years in green and gold.  She batted .342 in 2012.  She also had a solid .944 fielding percentage in her first campaign at third base after moving from second base, where she played in 2011.  This year, she will move to another new position, taking over at shortstop, filling the team's main loss in Emily Petrowsky, who had been a four-year starter at the position.
 
Lindsey Daniels, who started all of the team's games at second base last year, returns to that spot this year, Daniels batted .294 last year and scored 25 runs.
 
The outfield will likely consist of Sam Shumaker in left, Suzie Cool in center, and Shannon Hite in right field.

Shumaker, a senior lefty, started 36 games last year and batted .290. She tied for the team lead with 22 RBI and was tops in home runs with four.  Cool, a sophomore, appeared in all 40 games, starting 39 and serving as the team's leadoff hitter much of the season.  She batted .217 and stole five bases.  Hite, who had been the team's starting right fielder in both 2010 and 2011, missed much of her junior campaign due to injury, appearing in just 9 games.  The previous season, she batted .344.
 
Other returnees include Ally Panzella, who filled in for Hite in right field much of the year, and batted .117 in 34 games.   Brianna Toth, a sophomore, will provide depth in the infield and also see time in the circle in relief.   Lynn Buffoni, a senior, will also see time in the infield and behind the plate.  She started 10 games in 2012.
 
The key newcomer this year is Shayla Landman, who will get the nod at third base to start the season.  The freshman is no newcomer to PAC athletics, as she was the PAC Championship tennis team's #2 singles player during the fall. 
 
Six other freshmen will be trying to work their way into the lineup as well, when the season begins on Sunday, March 3 in Clermont, Florida against Moravian.