KEY POINTS:
Chinese Taipei are likely to pose the biggest threat to the White Sox in next week's Asia Oceania Olympic qualifying tournament in Taiwan.
The New Zealand women's softball team leave on Friday for the five-day tournament which starts in Tainan City on February 1.
They will stop off in Melbourne for a series of warm-up games.
The tournament is the White Sox's last chance to qualify for next year's Olympics, which are the last Games that will feature women's softball.
Eight teams will compete in next year's Olympics. The top four in last year's world championships - the United States, Japan, Australia and Canada - have already qualified along with the host country, China.
The other three places will be awarded to the winners of the three qualifying tournaments - Europe-Africa, Pan-America, and Asia-Oceania.
Joining the White Sox and Chinese Taipei in the Asia Oceania tournament are North Korea, South Korea, the Philippines and Singapore.
Chinese Taipei go into the tournament as the top-ranked team after they finished 8th in last year's world championships. New Zealand are second after their disappointing 11th in the world championships.
White Sox coach Dean Rice recalled five former players for the must-win tournament.
He said the qualifier wasn't the time to introduce new players and he had gone with players who had a history of doing the job in New Zealand and internationally.
"It is our last chance to qualify and we have also been made aware that if we don't qualify for the Olympics then the funding for the softball programme will be pretty much non-existent. There is a lot riding on this tournament."
Due to a lack of funding the White Sox haven't been able to get together for a camp and will have their first training session when they get to Melbourne.
"It is not ideal," Rice said.
"There are a number of factors we are up against. Not being able to train together as a team is one. We have also had a couple of players come back from pregnancies and have two or three players that have had some serious injuries and are just coming back . We know we are going to be up against it but you have to move on really."
Many of the White Sox played in the weekend's opening round of the women's national league in Auckland. After five games Hutt Valley sit at the top for the table with four points. Defending champions Auckland started their title defence strongly and have a record of four wins and one loss.
In the opening round of the men's league played in Christchurch, Wellington ended the weekend with a clean record. A strong performance with the bat saw them record five wins - 10-5 against Southern Pride, 4-0 over North Harbour, 7-4 against Canterbury, 9-5 over Auckland and 10-3 against Hutt Valley. The next round is on the weekend of February 17-18.
