Ben Light Gymnasium hosts its fair share of spring sports teams each winter. The athletes’ faces often lack enthusiasm when they are playing on a hardwood floor instead of outdoors. As soon as the softball team enters though, the mood changes. Head Coach Deb Pallozzi said it’s that spirit that separates her 2009 team from any other team she has coached in her 20 years at Ithaca College.

Many of those teams advanced deep into the NCAA playoffs, and the 2008 team was no different, as it went to the NCAA World Series and finished fourth in the country. That is something Pallozzi said will benefit a young squad this season.

“That experience is going to loom large,” she said. “That experience from the sophomores and juniors is really going to help our freshmen over the course of the season.”

With that leadership, the 2009 version comes back to the Hill Center gym in preseason with a sense of urgency, making what can be monotonous practices highly competitive and entertaining.

Junior first baseman Caitlin Ryan said the competitiveness puts them in tense, gamelike situations that will prepare them for games later in the year.

She said competitions in practice facilitate a high level of intensity every year, but this time around, the energy level rises every day.

One of those in-practice games involves the infielders, who are challenged to try and stop 21 hit balls in a row. When a freshman shortstop lays out on the hardwood gym floor, Pallozzi cannot help but get excited.

“You can have all the skill in the world,” she said. “But if they aren’t going to be spirited and get after it and do anything to stop a ball, it isn’t as good.”

That attitude is set in place by the upperclassmen, and the younger sophomores and freshmen are taking it to heart.

“We’ve laid out our goals this season, and we are going to work harder and harder to get there,” sophomore Allison Greaney said.

Those goals of winning the league and a national championship will need that hard work, especially since Greaney, Ryan and senior Gaby Flores are the only three returning starters from the 2008 team.

With numerous positions up for grabs, these next few weeks will figure greatly in determining who will be significant factors during the course of the conference season. Both the time in the gym and during the team’s 10 first regular season games, which will be played in  Clermont, Fla., help

Pallozzi make the conference opening-day lineup against Alfred University April 4.

“It helps me solidify what roles everyone will play,” she said.

She has only been able to get a team outside before going on the trip once in her years of coaching. Despite the more favorable weather, this year was not the year.

So, the first few games in Florida are more of innings of adjustment than innings of excellence. While the athletes can take a full infield in the gym, they do not get to see a ball in the air until that first pop fly against Brandeis University on Saturday.

In their excitement to see the blue sky behind the softball, the players have created a digital countdown on Pallozzi’s computer to the day they leave for Florida. Many of the athletes are tired of the cold snow and cannot wait to get outside and play.

“It’s definitely nice to get out of this weather,” Ryan said. “It’s nice to go out there and do a different thing.”

With a few in-region schools on the schedule in their first 10 games in Florida, the weather adjustment will have to be a quick one. Though not a direct indicator of how the season will pan out, those early games may be important for the NCAA tournament seeding and selection.

At this moment though, the team’s spirit and love of the game will be the driving force behind its focus in every single practice.  

“With everyone’s passion and will to win, it really motivates you,” Greaney said. “We realized we are winning for everyone and not just our own self.”