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The Owls begin their 51-game journey on Feb. 9 against Mississippi State at 6 p.m. That is the first game of the Paradise Classic, a weekend-long tournament that also features Iowa, Stony Brook, Loyola and Bethune-Cookman. FAU will compete in five games in its opening weekend.
The 2023 season also marks the beginning of FAU head coach Jordan Clark's tenure at the helm of the Owls' program. Clark arrives in Boca Raton after spending the last four seasons at Ohio State.
"We are excited to get the season started," Clark said. "We feel like we have practiced so much and we need to play somebody else. We need to see how we handle adversity and how we handle things that don't go our way. This preseason, we've put the team in a lot of different situations to see how they would handle adversity."
Last season, the Owls posted a 29-26 record, which was the most wins in a season since 2018, and FAU also made its first appearance in the Conference USA Championship Tournament since the 2018 campaign. Heading into the 2023 season, FAU brings back an experienced group with seven starting position players and two starting pitchers returning from last season.
The Owls are led by a pair of Preseason All-Conference USA honorees in starting pitcher Lynn Gardner and outfielder Sara Berthiaume.
Berthiaume put up big numbers as the left fielder for the Owls in 2022 and led the team in batting average (.384) RBI (34) runs (33) doubles (10) triples (7) slugging percentage (.604%) and on-base percentage (.429).
Gardner returns after being the ace in the circle last year for FAU, pitching to an 18-9 record and a 2.73 ERA in 2022. She was a true workhorse for the Owls' pitching staff, throwing an astounding 22 complete games in 26 starts with nine shutouts and leading the Owls in nearly every pitching category.
Zoey Jones is set to hold down the first base position for the Owls after being a staple at that spot last year. Jones started in 53 games and posted a .264 batting average, while tying Berthiaume for the team lead in home runs with four.
Returning in the outfield for the Owls is center fielder Kaitlyn Cunningham, who played in all 55 games last year and posted a .252 overall batting average and a .269 batting average in Conference USA play. Cunningham ranked second on the team in hits (40) as well as runs (24).
Coming back in the circle in addition to Gardner is Gabby Sacco. In her freshman season, Sacco pitched to a 3.41 ERA in 100.2 innings of work with seven complete games.
The Owls will compete in five games this weekend, with a Friday night matchup against Stony Brook then two games on Saturday against Iowa & Loyola. The Paradise Classic weekend will wrap up with a 2 p.m. game on Sunday against Bethune-Cookman.
FAU will travel to Fort Myers for the FGCU Invitational next weekend from Feb. 17-19, before returning home to host the Joan Joyce Classic Feb. 23-26 and the Owl Classic March 2-5. C-USA play begins with a trip to UAB from March 10-12.