I honestly thought Mike White would've moved Alyssa Washington to 2nd base and Janae Jefferson to SS being that she is our most consistent infielder. Parker made a strong push when first inserted into the lineup but she is back to the error prone Parker we have seen for years. Not trying to bash her but she is very inconsistent at SS and causes innings to go so much longer. Mine White is so focused on offense that our defense and consistency struggles because of it. I'm not confident with this team going into the post season. This upcoming series against Baylor will tell us all we need to know about where this team is mentally. Mike White may need to hit the portal extremely hard after this season because we are going to need help unless one of the freshman come in and are ready to contribute immediately.
She couldn't. Her eligibility is up as she was a senior last year who used her extra covid year this season.
So these are the players who are super-juniors (covid bonus) this year: Lauren Burke Jenae Jefferson Taylor Ellsworth (RS-super junior) Ariana Adams (left team) MK Tedder Mary Iakopo And surprise the three biggest hitters are encouraged to come back for their bonus senior year.
I don't disagree with your opinion of this year's pitching. The thing I wonder about is if the pitching staff was hidden by the blinding talent of Elish. What I mean by that was she was the Day 1 pitcher put up against the Day 1 pitcher of our opponent. And then O'Leary was Day 2, Day was Day 3, and so forth. With that lineup: Elish: 11-3 O'Leary: 6-0 Day: 5-0 Adams: 2-0 With Elish opting out/retiring, suddenly 2-4 gets exposed to the point where Adams quits softball. Were we that bad? But yet we beat UCLA and Washington? Last year was the year to catch OU down and us up. Argh. As for Ryleigh White, I hope she doesn't pull a Grace Green (remember her?) and leave because of a crummy year.
I will say Alyssa Popelka is a huge bright spot and it really sucks she got injured. She was really getting into a groove offensively and her defense was amazing. The type of player who can get things going for your team when struggling just with a simple bunt. She was desperately needed in that OU series when we couldn't seem to get a hit or reach the bases
Popelka was a bright spot hope she recovers well. Parker hitting and defense before the last couple weeks was the biggest surprise for me. Pitching: 100% need a transfer next year. I do believe from what I've seen from Sophia Simpson she will come in college ready. She is from the same school and pitching coach as Randi Rupp (txst) and Jessica Mullin Fr (txst). This years it really feels we are missing that competitive edge. In all the big games instead of going out to win they are going out to not lose and just playing tight ball.
Nice bounce-back from the series against OSU. Complete series shutout? Rare. Thoughts: In the first game, I thought it was nice and playful of coach to let Jacobson bat. I had wondered if the announcer mentioned her BA when she was in JUCO as a planned precursor to her at-bat later that game? It's so obvious that she never bats that she didn't have a batting helmet and had to borrow Courtney's helmet! Apparently Baylor's in the same boat as we are in terms of quality and depth of pitching. But that shortstop-pitcher-hitter Binford? That was a surprise! I know that Baylor had a lower BA, but goodness. It reminded of the Connie days. The Shea-then-Molly-then-Shea rotation suits me fine. I was dreading Mike starting Courtney as the Day 3 pitcher. I guess? I hope he's decided that as the rotation for tournament, which is going to be even shorter with some days as double-headers. So maybe not. Looks like we won't realistically beat the season HR record. But fingers crossed K-Wash gets another chance to beat the doubles record The substitution error by Mike in Sunday's leading to Ellsworth being called out. I have NEVER seen that in college ball. That was so.....boneheaded I thought that Sully was a decent first baseman, but this series showed me otherwise. I'm glad Mike was willing to make the change at first for the last game I don't understand the constant rotation at 3rd. SS is where others should have been trotted out That catch by MK was so clutch. I wonder why Mike wouldn't put her in at least part time. I mean her hitting has gotten so much better. She just doesn't have the at-bats to prove it Although their fielding percentage was much higher than ours, it was nice to play a team having worse fielding than ours When Connie first fielded a team with 5 pitchers, we all thought she was nuts and wasting potential scholarships. Now, I see most teams need to start the season with 5 pitchers. Sorry Connie!
I said the same about Tedder as well. I remember last season she made that huge catch against Oklahoma and looked pretty consistent for the most part. I think she deserved more playing time than what she has gotten this season. I was also impressed with our fielding this weekend for the most part. Didn't really see any careless errors like we have seen in the past. I hope this was the weekend where everything clicks and we carry this over to the postseason especially our pitching with as that was the best O'leary and Jacobsen have looked all season.
Congratulations to Shannon Rhodes!!! She got picked over some some real talent such as Amber Fiser, Jessie Harper, Sis Bates, and Dejah Mulipola. That's a huge accomplishment
I thought from a practical point of view, UT is the only Texas site out of 20 so we would have a better chance than say OK-State of hosting. OU obviously, because they're #1, will get to host
It all depends on the final NCAA rankings. The final top 8 teams get the regional tournament bids the way I understand it. LSU certainly has a worse record than us but there RPI is better because of the level of competition they played in primarily the SEC.
Excuse my confusion, but I thought....there were 16 regional sites? And of those 16 sites, 8 (of those original 16) would later be designated for super-regional?
You are correct racer. We should get a regional tournament that would put us in the sweet 16 if we win out. And then the final 8 will host a super regional tournament. That’s what we are hoping to qualify to host. Our last super regional we went to was Alabama. And we know how that went. Thanks for keeping me straight racer.
Here's someone's swag at what the regionals might look like: Bracketology 7.1: FREE EDITION - Justin's World of Softball I heard on a podcast this person (who put this together) that he's got a 92% accuracy rate when it comes to predicting regionals and their teams. Texas vs Oregon? Oh, my.
