This certainly is the deepest staff we've had. This is the most good arms we've ever had. Pitching will be the key if the Missionaries hope to convert last year's multitude of narrow losses into a winning season and a ticket into the upper echelon of the Northwest Conference. The five teams in the bottom half of the conference all finished within three games of one another in the final standings. The nine-school conference should be just as competitive this spring, and possibly more so.
Every team has a few front-line pitchers and some good position players.
It isn't unfathomable that a team picked to finish in the bottom half of the conference could come through and win it all. In a preseason poll of coaches, Willamette garnered four first-place votes and 75 points overall to top the voting. Linfield with 72 points and George Fox with 68 were a close second and third. Both schools picked up two first-place votes. Pacific Lutheran was next in line with 50 points, just two ahead of Whitman.