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IRVINE, Calif. - Reigning champion Cal State Fullerton is the coaches’ near-unanimous favorite to repeat in 2023, as announced by The Big West alongside the league’s first preseason team for the sport on Friday.
 
The Titans garnered 80 points largely from eight of the nine opposing first-place votes to top the poll for the seventh consecutive preseason. Long Beach State, the 2022 runner-up, is second with 68 points and one first-place nod.The Beach are followed closely by Hawai’i (59 points) and UC San Diego (56). CSUN (41), Cal Poly (40), UC Riverside (36) and UC Davis (35) occupy the fifth through eighth spots, with the Mustangs grabbing the final first-place vote. UC Santa Barbara (20) and CSU Bakersfield (15) round out the list.
 
Cal State Fullerton boasts a league-best five representatives on the inaugural 11-member Big West preseason coaches’ team, with six other programs having one selection each. The Titans on the squad include catcher Jessi Alcala, third baseman Hannah Becerra and outfielder Megan Delgadillo, all juniors, alongside the senior tandem of Daisy Muñoz and Myka Sutherlin. They are joined by Kenedi Brown of UC Davis, Jada Cecil of UC San Diego, Cal Poly’s Jessica Clements, Samantha Fowler of Long Beach State, Brianna Lopez of Hawai’i, and UC Santa Barbara’s Madelyn McNally.
 
Cal State Fullerton, winner of five of the last six Big West titles apart from the shortened 2020 campaign, went 37-22 overall a year ago and 20-7 in Big West action, one game better than the Beach. The Titans went 1-2 at the NCAA Championship’s Tempe Regional with a 3-2 victory over LSU in between defeats to the host Sun Devils and San Diego State. Eleventh-year head coach Kelly Ford was voted by peers as The Big West Coach of the Year for the fifth time.
 
Delgadillo, the reigning Big West Player of the Year and a 2022 National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) All-West Region Second Team pick, was recently named to D1Softball’s Preseason D100. The fourth-year standout led the league with 80 hits, 57 runs and a .404 average, breaking The Big West and program single-season steals record with 50 and becoming the school’s all-time leader in the category. Becerra was a 2021 third-team NFCA All-American and The Big West Freshman Field Player of the Year before making the NFCA All-West Region Second Team in 2022 with Delgadillo. Alcala was on the third team.
 
Long Beach State has to replace three-time All-Big West First Team honoree Naomi Hernandez and 2022 NFCA All-West Region Third Team third baseman Ashleigh Inae. Jacquelyn Bickar, Sophia Fernandez and Sara Olson, who picked up All-Big West honorable mentions a year ago, are all back with ace Fowler in the circle. The Beach have installed lights at the LBSU Softball Complex, meaning night games are on tap for them for the first time in the program’s 43-year history. LBSU Athletics Hall of Famer and four-time Big West Coach of the Year Kim Sowder begins a 17th season in charge just four wins shy of 500.
 
Hawai’i lost two-time All-Big West shortstop Nawai Kaupe, who both led the league in home runs and was voted Big West Defensive Player of the Year as a senior. Lopez finished third in the conference with a 2.07 ERA as a true freshman left-hander, while the Rainbow Wahine also return top hitter (.333) and All-Big West second-teamer Maya Nakamura at second base. The longest-tenured leader in The Big West, Bob Coolen, embarks on a 37th season as a college head coach (32nd at UH) ranked No. 5 on the active Division I coaches wins list with 1,122.
 
Heading into its third go-around in The Big West, UC San Diego brings back its two-headed monster in the circle of two-way junior left-hander Gabby Williams and Cecil, who garnered NFCA All-West Region first- and second-team distinction, respectively, a season ago. A true sophomore right-hander, Cecil was the 2022 Big West Pitcher and Freshman Pitcher of the Year. Patti Gerckens, now in a 31st campaign in charge (823 wins), guided the Tritons to their first postseason appearance as a Division I program last May, as they went 1-2 at the National Invitational Softball Championship in Fort Collins, Colo.
 
Ten of the 11 student-athletes on the preseason squad made the All-Big West first or second teams a year ago, with Cecil, Clements and Lopez also on the All-Freshman Team. Becerra, Brown, Delgadillo and McNally are two-time all-conference selections, with Muñoz a three-timer going back to 2019.
 
A redshirt sophomore outfielder for the Mustangs, Clements was the 2022 Big West Freshman Field Player of the Year and an NFCA All-West Region third-teamer. Ten of the 11 preseason honorees are also California products, with eight from the state’s southern part. A native of Gilbert, Ariz., Sutherlin is the lone exception.
 
There will be two new head coaches in The Big West in 2023, but one of them is a very familiar face in softball circles, as NFCA Hall of Famer Jo Evans took over the post at UC Santa Barbara last August after 26 seasons at Texas A&M and 1,300 career wins over 37 years and two prior stops at Colorado State and Utah. Daniel Sperl grabs the reins at CSU Bakersfield as a first-time college head coach.
 
The 2023 college softball season begins next week with all 10 Big West programs taking the diamond, almost exclusively in tournament action. Five squads, including defending champion and preseason favorite Cal State Fullerton, open on Thursday, Feb. 9, with four teams starting things off the following day. UC Santa Barbara is last up, ushering in the Jo Evans era on Saturday, Feb. 11, with a pair of tilts at Cal Poly’s Central Coast Classic in San Luis Obispo.
 
The Titans take on second-ranked 2022 Women’s College World Series participant UCLA in primetime that Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the Bruins’ Easton Stadium as part of the Stacy Winsberg Tournament. Cal State Fullerton is listed among others team receiving votes in the preseason USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Coaches Poll.
 
The 2023 Big West conference schedule consists of a 27-game slate, with each side facing all nine opponents in three-game sets starting Thursday, March 16. Check listings to see which contests air on ESPN+.
 
The Big West regular-season champion will earn the league’s automatic berth again this year into the 64-team NCAA Division I Softball Championship. The 2023 WCWS remains at the USA Softball Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Okla., June 1-9. The University of Oklahoma is the two-time defending national champion.