Seton Hall will play in its final early season tournament when it heads west for five games against a challenging field of teams at the San Diego State University San Diego Classic II on Friday-Sunday, March 15-17, in San Diego, Calif. The Pirates open tournament play against Texas Tech and Miami (Ohio) on Friday, and face Texas-Arlington and San Diego State on Saturday. SHU closes out the tournament on Sunday morning when it will face Colorado State.

• This will be the first ever meeting between Seton Hall and three of its opponents at this weekend's tournament: Texas-Arlington, San Diego State and Colorado State.

• Texas Tech leads the all-time series with Seton Hall, 2-0, and this will mark the second year in a row the two programs will face one another. Texas Tech was at the Seton Hall Strike Out Cancer Tournament last year in South Orange.

• Miami (Ohio) lead the all-time series with Seton Hall, 2-0, but Friday's meeting will be the first between the two schools since a doubleheader in 1985.

Seton Hall posted a 3-1 record at the UMBC Dawg Pound Invitational last weekend. The Pirates beat Coppin State, 8-4, and came back to beat Princeton, 4-3, on Saturday in Baltimore, Md., and then split a doubleheader at George Washington on Sunday. Freshman Yasmin Harrell finished the week with a .600 average, batting 9-for-15, while sophomore Danielle DeStaso was the pitcher of record in all four wins, including three at the UMBC Tournament.

Freshman center fielder Yasmin Harrell was named to the BIG EAST Conference Weekly Honor Roll on March 11. It is the first time in her career Harrell received the conference honor. Harrell hit .600 (9-for-15) to help Seton Hall post a 4-1 record over the second week of its Spring Break trip. She also stole four bases and hit safely in four games, with four multi-hit performances. Harrell ranks second on the team with a .380 average and leads the Pirates with 11 runs scored.

Seton Hall enters this weekend's tournament with a 9-7 overall record but the Pirates have been on a roll over the last two weeks. Seton Hall went 6-2 over is Spring Break trip and is 7-2 over its last nine games.

Sophomore Danielle DeStaso leads Seton Hall with seven wins so far this season, including four victories last week alone. She has already eclipsed her freshman season win total of six games last year. DeStaso ranks first on the team with a 2.66 earned run average and 57 strikeouts.

So far this season Seton Hall has done a good job a preserving leads late in a game. The Pirates are 9-1 when they lead through six innings with the only exception coming in a 5-2 loss to Delaware on Feb. 22, where the Blue Hens scored four runs in the top of the seventh.

Freshman Alex Rabbetts hit a pair of home runs last week to tie for the team lead with two homers this year. She also boasted a season-best seven-game hitting streak that was snapped in the loss at George Washington on March 10.

Sophomore right fielder Sara Haefeli has had a hot bat at the plate as of late. She has hit safely in six of her last seven games with two doubles and four RBI over that stretch. She has appeared in 15 games, making 12 starts, so far this year and is hitting .261.

Freshman center fielder Yasmin Harrell has already shown a knack for swiping bases. So far this season she leads the team and ranks third in the BIG EAST with eight steals and she has only been caught stealing twice.

Senior shortstop Brittany Hammer is quickly approaching the top-10 in school history in a pair of offensive categories. With 21 career doubles she sits just two shy of tying Jen O'Connor and Leah Menichetti for 10th place in program history and her .298 lifetime batting average is just two points shy of Kealan Waldron in 10th place with a .300 career average.

Sophomore Danielle DeStaso just cracked the Seton Hall top-10 in career strikeouts and junior Jen Metzger is not far behind. DeStaso has already fanned 162 batters in her career to rank 10th in school history while Metzger has 133 career strikeouts.

After missing the first three weeks of the season due to injury, junior third baseman Meredith Henze was back in the Pirates' lineup for the first time in Seton Hall's 5-0 win over Dartmouth on March 2. She was just a defensive substitution in her first game back and recorded her first at bat against Bucknell on March 3.

Led by Brittany Hammer's 3-for-4 performance at the plate Seton Hall closed out play at the Jacksonville University Invitational with a 5-3 win over Mount St. Mary's on Feb. 23. The senior shortstop drove in three runs in the win while sophomore Danielle DeStaso picked up the win, allowing just one run over 4.2 innings with four strikeouts.

Junior Maria DeLuca had her first breakout game of the season when she went 3-for-4 with a pair of RBI against Delaware on Feb. 22. She leads the team with 13 RBI and ranks second in total bases (24) and third slugging percentage (.522).

Sophomore Danielle DeStaso was named to the BIG EAST Weekly Honor Roll on Feb. 11, after leading Seton Hall to a 2-2 week at the Hampton Inn Campbell Stampede Tournament in Buies Creek, N.C. DeStaso finished the week hitting .692, with a 1.385 slugging percentage and eight RBI. It was the second time in her career DeStaso landed on the BIG EAST Honor Roll.

In Seton Hall's season opening 12-5 victory against St. Bonaventure sophomore Danielle DeStaso took direct aim at the Pirate record books. She went 5-for-5 with seven RBI and 11 total bases to set a new single-game school record in all three categories. Making her performance more impressive, she faced all but three batters as the starting pitcher to pick up the win in the process.

Seton Hall played its first extra inning game of the season, falling 7-6 in eight innings to Campbell on Feb. 9. Heading into the seventh inning with the score knotted at 5-5, both teams scored one run and after holding the Pirates in the top half of the eighth, Campbell escaped with the win in the bottom half of the frame.

Head coach Paige Smith has put together a challenging non-conference schedule to help prepare her team for BIG EAST action. The Pirates will face three teams that were either ranked or receiving votes in both the NFCA and ESPN/USA Today Preseason Top-25 polls in Hofstra, Texas Tech and South Alabama.

The Seton Hall softball program is under new management with the addition of first-year head coach Paige Smith to the program. Smith comes to Seton Hall after posting five winning seasons at Adelphi (2008-12) where she led the Panthers to a pair of NCAA Tournament berths. In five seasons at Adelphi, Smith posted an overall record of 169-104-1. She also had assistant coaching stints with St. John's (2007), North Idaho (2004-06) and Louisburg (2003).

First-year head coach Paige Smith announced two additions to her coaching staff for the 2013 season in Betsy White and Lindsey Curran. White, who graduated from Lipscomb in 2005 and spent the last two seasons on Smith's staff at Adelphi, will work primarily with the Pirates' pitchers. Curran played for Rutgers from 2009-12, making three-straight BIG EAST Tournament appearances.

Brittany Hammer was named the Seton Hall SAAC Junior Female Athlete of the Year at the annual SAAC Awards Banquet last spring. She was one of the Pirates' offensive leaders a year ago, starting in all 53 games and batting .300 with 34 runs scored, 18 RBI, eight doubles and four home runs.

The Seton Hall University softball team received 24 points and was picked to finish 12th overall in the BIG EAST Preseason Coaches Poll. The Pirates finished 13th in the league last season with a 3-19 record against league foes. USF earned 134 points and seven first-place votes to start the season as the preseason favorites to win the BIG EAST.

The 2013 BIG EAST softball championship will be held Thursday-Saturday, May 9-11, at the University of South Florida Softball Stadium in Tampa, Fla. The top eight teams in the conference will qualify for the single elimination tournament with the winner picking up the BIG EAST's automatic berth to the 2013 NCAA Championship. The BIG EAST Championship game will be held Saturday, May 11, at 4 p.m., and will be broadcast live on ESPN2.

For all of the latest news and updates on the Seton Hall University softball team, follow the Pirates on Twitter @SHUSoftball.