By Dylan Vazzano, TTU Sports Information Coordinator

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – It's time to dust off the cleats, break in the gloves, tape up the bats, and chalk up the lines. Tennessee Tech softball is back in business and with a strong core of returners that helped lead the Golden Eagles to a scorching streak down the stretch in 2014, there's a lot to be excited about in Cookeville.

The 56-game madness begins in Kennesaw, Ga. with four games in two days as part of the KSU Kickoff Classic. On Saturday, Tech will get the season going with a 9 a.m. CT matchup with Northern Kentucky, before a battle with Ohio, the defending MAC Tournament champions looms at 11:30 a.m. On Sunday the Golden Eagles will square off with Dayton at 11:30 a.m., and then will conclude the quartet of contests with a 4:30 p.m. showdown with the host Kennesaw State.

"It's what we work for all these months," TTU third-year head coach Bonnie Bynum enthusiastically claimed on the start of another season. "All the hard work in the fall, all the weight lifting and things like that. This is what we prepare for and what we are really excited about."

Tech enters the 2015 campaign having ended 2014 with a bang. The Golden Eagles won 13 of their final 16 games, including posting a 2-1 mark in the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament, winning both games in dramatic fashion while facing elimination. Tech began the theatrical-esque tournament run with a 5-3 victory over UT Martin, scoring a pair of sixth inning runs to break a 3-3 tie en route to the win.

The heroics over the Skyhawks proved to be a mere appetizer over what was about to ensue as the main course in a memorable OVC tourney run. Trailing 3-0 entering the sixth inning against top seeded Jacksonville State, on their home field, the Golden Eagles had to endure a 21-hour rain delay that forced them to sleep on the fact that their season was only six outs away from possibly coming to an end.

Clearly it didn't faze Tech in the slightest as the Golden Eagles posted a six run, sixth inning, using home runs by junior Cortney Fry and senior Angi Sakamoto to erase the deficit and pull out one of the wildest finishes in OVC Tournament history. Ultimately, the playoff run came to a screeching halt after relentless rain showers forced league officials to cancel the consolation bracket of the eight-team tournament, changing it to a single-elimination format and thus ending the Tech campaign.

"I think heading into this season a lot of momentum is with us and honestly talking with a lot of other schools around the OVC, they were all pretty disappointed that we were returning a big part of our team from last year," Bynum explained. "We are definitely excited to kick things off, and the way we ended last year is the way we are looking to start this year."

From an offensive standpoint, Tech brings back a number of key pieces from last year's squad including the team's leader in home runs, RBI, hits, and stolen bases in Angi Sakamoto, as well as last season's Golden Eagle batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage leader in junior Madison Taylor.  

Sakamoto's dynamic season that included a .294 average with eight round trippers and 38 runs batted in netted the 5-foot-5 outfielder with a spot on the All-OVC Second Team, while her outstanding playoff performance of two home runs and a tournament-best seven RBI brought Sakamoto an All-Tournament nod as well.

As far as Taylor is concerned, the Mt. Juliet, Tenn. native was one of four TTU players to hit over .400 in last year's OVC Tournament, joining the likes of junior Cortney Fry (.500), senior Hannah Eldridge (.444), and sophomore Alyssa Richards (.429). Fry, Eldridge, and Richards all came on down the stretch, helping bolster a Tech offense that produced nearly nine runs per game in the club's final 13 wins during the season-ending 13-3 run.

"I think they've only gotten stronger in the offseason," Bynum said, referencing the group above. "All of those girls have worked really hard to up their game and work on some things that we talked about at the end of last season. I'm really excited about the core group that we have returning and it's going to be even better this year."

From inside the circle, the conversation begins with sophomore Danielle Liberatore, who found herself on the All-OVC Newcomer Team after excelling as a freshman to the tune of a team-leading 15 wins, 2.89 ERA, and 143 strikeouts. Toward the finish line, the numbers were even more eye-popping as the 5-foot-10 southpaw ended the season winning 10 of her final 11 starts against conference schools, including going 2-1 in the OVC Tournament with a 1.40 ERA, striking out an impressive 24 in 20 innings of work.

"Honestly I keep telling her every day that she should be breaking every record here (most of which are Bynum's herself) and she definitely has the potential for that," Bynum remarked on the sophomore's potential. "She works hard, she knows her spin, she is very competitive and I think that is all going to help her do great things throughout her career."

Liberatore is one of five Tech arms to keep an eye on this season, with seniors Taylor Ketchum and Erica Tuck, junior Hannah Weaver, and freshman Taylor Waldrop all in the mix as well.

"I think our other pitchers have done a great job of developing," Bynum noted on the rest of the staff. "Hannah Weaver was a big surprise to a lot of people the way she came on and did a great job of holding that number two role for us. We fought some injuries last year with a couple of our seniors this year so I look for them to contribute a little bit more. And then we've added freshman Taylor Waldrop. She's got tremendous spin and tremendous potential."

Waldrop helps highlight a class of seven newcomers, including transfers Sabrie Neeb and Kelly Kennedy that enjoyed success at their previous colleges. Neeb was an All-Northeast Conference first teamer after finishing her sophomore campaign at St. Francis University with a team-best eight home runs and .461 slugging percentage. Kennedy drapes the Tech purple and gold after being named to the Horizon League All-Freshman Team last season with a .254 average, four doubles, one home run, and nine RBI while suiting up for the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Northern Kentucky: Saturday's matchup with Northern Kentucky will mark only the second time the two schools have met, with the Golden Eagles capturing an 8-0 victory as part of the Frost Classic hosted by UT Chattanooga back in 2013. The Norse will be looking to turn around a tough 2014 campaign in which they went just 5-45. Senior KC Straley stands out among the group of NKU returners after the switch-hitting outfielder tallied seven extra-base hits, while leading the club with 22 stolen bases in 24 attempts in 2014.

Ohio: The Bobcats are coming off a Mid-American Conference Tournament championship using lights out pitching to capture a spot in the NCAA Tournament by limiting their opponents to just one measly run in 34 innings throughout the conference tourney.  Ohio and the Golden Eagles will meet for the fourth time in series history, with Tech entering the tilt with a 2-1 record against the Bobcats. Last year's battle between the two was as good a game you will see, with TTU claiming a 6-5 extra inning victory behind a go-ahead two-run Madison Taylor knock in the top of the eighth that broke a 4-4 deadlock. Ohio plated a run in the bottom of the frame on an Andrienne Gebele RBI single, and then further picked up steam on its rally with a Savannah Jo Dorsey single that put runners on first and second with no one out, but Tech's Hannah Weaver escaped the jam by retiring the next three in order to push Tech to the finish line with the dramatic one-run victory.

Dayton: Picked fifth in the Atlantic 10's Preseason Poll, the Flyers are coming off a successful 2014 campaign in which the program had the most wins in a season since 2000, wrapping up the year with a 27-29 record. In fact, the team's two A-10 Conference Tournament victories were the most ever by a Flyer squad after taking out La Salle 9-1 and UMass 6-2. Sunday's meeting will be the rubber match between the two clubs with the all-time series squared away at 1-1. Senior Tiffany Ricks headlines Dayton after ending 2014 with eye-popping offensive numbers in which the Reynoldsburg, Ohio native hit .375 with 12 doubles, 12 home runs, 44 RBI, and 16 steals in 18 attempts en route to an A-10 First-Team selection.

Kennesaw State: You might have to look outside the lines for Sunday's biggest story line with Tech's all-time winningest coach in program history, Tory Acheson, ready to start his first season as interim head coach of the Owls. While at TTU, the Wisconsin-Milwaukee graduate compiled a 507-353 (.590) record in 14 seasons as head coach, recording at least 25 wins in 13 of his 14 seasons at the helm, while averaging 36 wins per year during that span as well. Acheson was an assistant with last year's Kennesaw State team, one that took two-out-of three from the Golden Eagles in mid-February to push the all-time series record to 9-7 in favor of Tech. The Owls return 10 players from last season's group, including junior Kara Chambers, the 2015 Atlantic Sun Preseason Co-Defensive Player of the Year, and sophomore Taylor Denton, who took home Second-Team All-Conference honors last year after hitting .344 with a team-leading 35 runs scored, 55 hits, and 15 stolen bases as a freshman.

Live Stats are available for each game. To access them as well as more information on the tournament…click here to go to the tournament central page.