2020 Softball Season

Ellis21d

Ellis21d

JediHorn
We need to start the 2020 Softball season off with what our roster expectations are for next year's team.
Last years team had 22 players listed on the roster. 3 were Seniors, Hayter, Alcozer, Bollinger. That leaves 19 potentially returning.
I would like to break the returners down by returning contributors and those that did not get much playing time.
Out of these 19 returners we currently have 2 listed in the transfer portal which leaves us 17.
We have 5 incoming Freshmen. 2 Pitchers, 2 In Fielders, and a Catcher. That leaves us 22 on the roster again for the 2020 season?

I can't see Coach White not picking up some transfers this off season? Also we would have 5 Pitchers on the roster. I really can' see Coach White keeping that many Pitchers?

Substantial playing time:
1. Kaitlyn Slack - Sr, If 2. Malory Schattle - Sr, If 3. Shannon Rhodes - Sr, If/Of 4. Kaitlyn Washington - Sr, If/Of
5. Miranda Elish - Sr, P 6. Reagan Hathaway - Sr, Of
7. Taylor Ellsworth - R-Jr, If 8. Lauren Burke - Jr, If 9. Janae Jefferson - Jr, If 10. MK Tedder - Jr, If/Of 11. Mary Iakopo - Jr, If
12. Mckenzie Parker - Soph, If 13. Shaelyn O'Leary - Soph, P

Not substantial playing time:
1. Tuesday Dermargosian - Sr, Of
2. Ariana Adams - Jr, P
3. Janna Roberts - Soph, If/Of 4. Elicia Espinosa - Soph, If 5. Jaden Hoelker - Soph, IF/Of - listed in the transfer Portal
6. Chloe Romero - Soph, P - listed in the transfer Portal

Hope we can keep up with all the changes that will happen before next season begins!!
 
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Thanks for kicking off this thread!

I remember when Connie first brought on 5 pitchers we were shaking our heads. I remember thinking, "Great. She now is trying the shotgun method of finding the next Cat or Blair. One of these five has to be good!"

And then, another ticket holder turned to me as we were griping about it and said, "You know, there has never been a team that's made the WCWS with 5 pitchers."

As that phrase goes, That-was-then-this-is-now.

During the WCWS, the commentators mentioned that OU had 6 (!) pitchers. Wait what? So your mention of 5 pitchers had me curious and I went to their web site (before they scrub the pictures of the transfers)

1) G. Juarez (transfer from ASU)
2) Shannon Saile (transfer from FIU)
3) Brooke Vestal (freshman from New Braunfels and an example of how Connie miss on someone in her own backyard)
4) Parker Conrad (transfer from Mizzou)
5) Mariah Lopez (in transfer portal - waited 3 years to be a starter and now realizes that's not going to happen)

So with Lopez leaving that leaves OU with 4 pitchers....and then they get more players in! Wow, they signed 8 players last Fall:

Softball Inks Eight for 2019-20

(of those 8, 3 are listed as pitchers!)
5*) Macy McAdoo
6*) Alanna Nelson-Thiede
7*) Olivia Rains

Technically, OU will have 7 pitchers on staff next year!

Sorry, steered into a OU thread. But if the #2 team (on paper, right now) will have 7 pitchers....then we will have (on paper)

1) Miranda Elish
2) Shea O'Leary
3) Arianna Adams
4) Grace Green
5) Courtney Day
 
racerx5908 said:
Thanks for kicking off this thread!

I remember when Connie first brought on 5 pitchers we were shaking our heads. I remember thinking, "Great. She now is trying the shotgun method of finding the next Cat or Blair. One of these five has to be good!"

And then, another ticket holder turned to me as we were griping about it and said, "You know, there has never been a team that's made the WCWS with 5 pitchers."

As that phrase goes, That-was-then-this-is-now.

During the WCWS, the commentators mentioned that OU had 6 (!) pitchers. Wait what? So your mention of 5 pitchers had me curious and I went to their web site (before they scrub the pictures of the transfers)

1) G. Juarez (transfer from ASU)
2) Shannon Saile (transfer from FIU)
3) Brooke Vestal (freshman from New Braunfels and an example of how Connie miss on someone in her own backyard)
4) Parker Conrad (transfer from Mizzou)
5) Mariah Lopez (in transfer portal - waited 3 years to be a starter and now realizes that's not going to happen)

So with Lopez leaving that leaves OU with 4 pitchers....and then they get more players in! Wow, they signed 8 players last Fall:

Softball Inks Eight for 2019-20

(of those 8, 3 are listed as pitchers!)
5*) Macy McAdoo
6*) Alanna Nelson-Thiede
7*) Olivia Rains

Technically, OU will have 7 pitchers on staff next year!

Sorry, steered into a OU thread. But if the #2 team (on paper, right now) will have 7 pitchers....then we will have (on paper)

1) Miranda Elish
2) Shea O'Leary
3) Arianna Adams
4) Grace Green
5) Courtney Day
Click to expand...
Racer I think you make a great comparison with Oklahoma. I guess they believe they can never have too many pitchers. I noticed they had 21 players listed on their roster where we had 22.
 
racerx5908 said:
Very interesting article about the transfer portal and how it affects recruiting:
Topical Issue: Are Player Transfers Changing the NCAA Softball Landscape for Better? Or Worse? - Extra Inning Softball
Click to expand...
This was a great read on the transfer portal and applies to all ncaa sports, not just softball. I can not imagine Coach White not picking up some the transfers that are now coming available in the portal. I don't know what his roster limit would be but I would't think it would be much more than 22/23. As the article said how do you tell a player we are having to cut you because we have a transfer coming in? Fortunately Texas has the means to let a player keep their scholarship without them playing. Going to be an interesting next few months watching how all this plays out.
 
Ellis21d said:
This was a great read on the transfer portal and applies to all ncaa sports, not just softball. I can not imagine Coach White not picking up some the transfers that are now coming available in the portal. I don't know what his roster limit would be but I would't think it would be much more than 22/23. As the article said how do you tell a player we are having to cut you because we have a transfer coming in? Fortunately Texas has the means to let a player keep their scholarship without them playing. Going to be an interesting next few months watching how all this plays out.
Click to expand...
There has to be a realistic limit right? I did a google:
Softball Scholarships & Chances of Playing College Softball
And the technical limit is 12 per school. And then this paragraph explains how that's stretched out:

Softball is an equivalency sport for NCAA scholarship purposes, so partial scholarships can be awarded to meet the limit per school. For example, an NCAA Division I school can award 18 softball players each a 2/3 scholarship and still meet the limit of 12 per school. See our page on scholarship limits for more information. All varsity intercollegiate softball programs in the US are women's teams.

So we must have some that are walk-on, paying their own way, and some that are getting partially funded via academic money, but still considered a walk-on?
 
Back to the upcoming season. The biggest glaring hole in the 2018 team was the infield. The fielding percentage was .963, making UT in the NCAA stats category number 108, just behind Texas State. We made 65 errors compared to last year's 39:
AsGtDPg.png

The top 10 teams in the country:
QRDChNs.png

With OU slipping to #2 based on the errors they committed in the championship games vs. UCLA.

The stats of our infielders, in terms of the number of errors:
1) Burke - 3
2) Jefferson - 5
3) Schattle - 6 (limited play too!)
4) Slack - 6
5) Parker - 9
6) Iakopo - 9
7) Rhodes - 13

I think (hope and pray) that Ellsworth comes back to platoon with Iakopo (although Iakopo was such a clutch hitter that last half of the season) so that Iakopo gets a mental and physical break.

And then......I think Rhodes needs to go to the outfield and we find a new 3rd base and SS combo that can handle the ball better.
 
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Definitely will get some transfers.

Rumors are that Roberts and maybe Espinosa are not coming back. Possibly Schattle and Adams too.
 
Ellis21d said:
First big change! I wondered if this might happen! They really took a dive late in the season.
Click to expand...

Mixture of surprise and not-surprise.

First, I thought there might be a chance that Chelsea Spencer would be let go because of the poor infield defense. But then again, she's been with him many years and he's got some loyalty to her.

Second, yeah the hitting really just flatlined the second half of the year. I wondered if he might replace the hitting coach, but figured they were buds and this guy gave up being a head coach at Division II to come down here. But.....kudos for Mike White for being decisive and fixing something now rather than experiment for another year.
 
racerx5908 said:
Man, what a hire out of left field. I hope Mike knows what he's doing. I figured he'd hire one of his ex-players. Of course, the Florida and OSU coaches were ex-baseball players...so who knows?
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I was thinking the same thing. Obviously he seems like a really good hitting coach, but SB hitting is significantly different than BB. Hopefully he can get SB figured out real quick.
 
Run Pincher said:
but SB hitting is significantly different than BB.
Click to expand...

It's much closer than you might think. Most of what's being taught by elite instructors today almost mimic MLB swings. It doesn't always seem that way in games but my theory is the reaction time of being only 42 feet from the plate on a 68-70 mph fastball.
 
Vol Horn 4 Life said:
It's much closer than you might think. Most of what's being taught by elite instructors today almost mimic MLB swings. It doesn't always seem that way in games but my theory is the reaction time of being only 42 feet from the plate on a 68-70 mph fastball.
Click to expand...
It's always interesting how people hire people they want to work with. At my work, some of my new jobs are random drop-ins. Some of my new jobs are because of people I've worked with in the past. Some are due to my reputation....."I know a guy..." kind of thing.

Makes me wonder the connection that Mike W had in the past with the new hitting coach. Since the new coach was in baseball, where or how did Mike W know it would translate into good hitting for softball?

Just pointless musings through the doldrums of summer.
 
Our new hitting Coach heading to town and he’s excited. Appears they are headed to Colorado Springs for the 4th of July Sparkler & Fireworks tournament put on by Triple Crown fast pitch. Looking for that next great Longhorn player!
I suspect there will be an official announcement about Steve Singleton’s hiring very soon!
 
Ellis21d said:
Our new hitting Coach heading to town and he’s excited. Appears they are headed to Colorado Springs for the 4th of July Sparkler & Fireworks tournament put on by Triple Crown fast pitch. Looking for that next great Longhorn player!
I suspect there will be an official announcement about Steve Singleton’s hiring very soon!
Click to expand...


The Fireworks/Sparkler are actually in the Denver area. If you hear from him let him know my daughter will be in the Fireworks 18u power pool in Aurora. :smile1:

For the power pool they selected the top 44 teams nationwide out of 255 that applied to play. We have 4 pool games then have double elimination play that starts Friday. The competition is tough!!

From 8U to 18u there are nearly 1200 teams and over 25,000 players. It's a college coaches dream.

I'm sitting outside my airb&b right now and we're leaving for a scouting combine in a couple hours. Woo hoo, this is my favorite tourney of the year!!
 
Vol Horn 4 Life said:
The Fireworks/Sparkler are actually in the Denver area. If you hear from him let him know my daughter will be in the Fireworks 18u power pool in Aurora. :smile1:

For the power pool they selected the top 44 teams nationwide out of 255 that applied to play. We have 4 pool games then have double elimination play that starts Friday. The competition is tough!!

From 8U to 18u there are nearly 1200 teams and over 25,000 players. It's a college coaches dream.

I'm sitting outside my airb&b right now and we're leaving for a scouting combine in a couple hours. Woo hoo, this is my favorite tourney of the year!!
Click to expand...
Wow what a tournament! My daughters both played on an elite travel team for AAU basketball! We spent a lot of summers traveling, AAU and Nike Nationals every year! Some of the best memories of our lives!
Have fun Vol Horn!
 
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Colleen Sullivan is transferring to UT from UCLA per her Instagram.

Wonder if Ellsworth is going to play since she is a catcher. But could also play 1B for us.
 
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Saw this and a couple of other "thanks Mike White" twitter posts. So, they're holding a Texas camp while at the big tournament? Is that normal? I mean it's genius to evaluate players and engage them with the Texas coaches. But then, I'm not a travel team softball dad, so I don't know if this is business as usual.
 
UTexRulz23 said:
Colleen Sullivan is transferring to UT from UCLA per her Instagram.

Wonder if Ellsworth is going to play since she is a catcher. But could also play 1B for us.
Click to expand...
Mmmm, don't know what's going to happen with Ellsworth or what that means for Mary and the incoming freshman catcher.

But then, to be honest the last good defensive catcher we had was.....Mandy Ogle. And by that I mean a catcher could count on throwing out the steal at second rather than see it sailing past the second base.
 
racerx5908 said:

Saw this and a couple of other "thanks Mike White" twitter posts. So, they're holding a Texas camp while at the big tournament? Is that normal? I mean it's genius to evaluate players and engage them with the Texas coaches. But then, I'm not a travel team softball dad, so I don't know if this is business as usual.
Click to expand...


Yes, Mike White had the "Mike White Camp" which was different because there were lots of other school camps but no other coaches. Many schools would team up and do group camps, but White did his all on his own.

My daughters part of the combine was on the same field right after his camp, but the entire combine took up 4 fields. There were probably 100+ coaches buzzing around. OU, OSU, ISU, TTU, Virginia, Syracuse, Harvard, Dartmouth, Miss St, Tennessee,etc just to name a few. It's crazy.

Tourney play starts tomorrow if the rain holds off.
 
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