TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — It has been 257 days since the 2017 season came to a close for Florida State in the NCAA Super Regionals, but that has turned into over eight months of work and preparation to set the foundation for Team 35 as the 2018 Seminole softball team begins competition this weekend with the Bobcat Classic on February 9-11.

Texas State will host the three-day tournament in San Marcos, Texas involving No. 9 Florida State, Portland State and Sam Houston State. FSU will play a pair of games on Friday (PSU at 2:30p ET and TXST at 5:00p ET), two on Saturday (TXST at 1:30p ET and PSU at 6:30p ET), with a single game on Sunday against SHSU at 1:00p ET.

“I’m excited to finally get the 2018 season underway,” said FSU head coach Lonni Alameda. “It has been a while since we’ve started the season on the road, but I think it will be good for this team to attack the adversity of travel and new locations and some quality opponents right off the bat. It will be fun to see us put all the pieces together this weekend.”

Sunday’s game against Sam Houston State will be the third time that the Seminoles and Bearkats have played, but the first since 1990. Florida State has never played either Texas State or Portland State in fastpitch softball.

It will be a homecoming for a pair of Seminoles this weekend as senior outfielder Morgan Klaevemann (Refugio) and freshman Rock Benavides (Corpus Christi) are both from the state of Texas.

The Seminoles were predicted to win their sixth consecutive ACC regular season championship in 2018 as voted on by the league’s head coaches. FSU received all 11 first-place votes, as teams were not allowed to vote for themselves.

The 2018 Noles will field a trio of returning NFCA All-Americans for the second year in a row. Seniors Jessie Warren and Morgan Klaevemann each received the national accolade in 2017, while redshirt senior Kylee Hanson was an NFCA Second Team All-American at FAU in 2016, before coming up to Florida State for the 2018 season.

All games this weekend will be broadcast on Texas State’s website through its All-Access subscription service and tickets are also available online at www.txstatebobcats.com. Live stats will be provided through StatBroadcast for each game and all related are available on the softball schedule page of Seminoles.com.

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FSU Week 1 Game Notes – Bobcat Classic (PDF)