2021 Softball Season

racerx5908 said:
Whew! What to say about this series with Okie-lite. Maybe the biggest thing was that they've become the top team I despise in the Big 12. OU, they're just good. Okie-lite, they're good. They're better than us, but totally classless as a team.

Today 30 minutes before the game, the OSU players were playing hacky-sack with each other, then got in a big circle and played some silly guessing game and laughing with each other. I look across the field into the Texas dugout and you see the team lined up across each other. There is no chatter. There is no activity other than some talking to each other, but to be honest most of them looked like they were lost in their own thoughts. Just staring into nothing. Wow. I thought, "They've lost the game even before the first pitch".

General thoughts:
  1. Our pitchers, except Shea, are pretty mentally weak. Day hits a player and the suddenly she's everywhere but the strike zone
  2. Still on a lookout for a SS. It's been what? The last year of Devin Tunning that we've had a decent one?
  3. My wife said, "Their pitchers weren't anything special". I think our hitting was, mentally, in the tank
  4. I don't know who really is responsible for infield play, but....they need a new coach. If it's Singleton, then it needs to be assigned to a new coach with a new perspective.
  5. Coach Bartlett did NOTHING wrong. I could barely figure out she was protesting to the ump because she didn't scream or raise her voice enough for me to hear. Basically, they wouldn't throw out Mike so made her the proxy ejection
  6. Tired of opponent fans sitting all around me. Our regular season ticket holders don't often show up and then the fans migrate down or just sit there until they're shooed away. Why buy tickets when you only show up like 20% of the time?
  7. After all this still experimentation with the lineup, Mike won't make any definite changes to address the errors. I guess he wants to go into the post-season with this lineup
  8. I'm dreading the post-season with this crew. On paper, we're a top 15 team. But unless we pick it up with a Baylor sweep, I see us not getting out of regionals
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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.
 
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.
 
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Nice bounce-back from the series against OSU. Complete series shutout? Rare. Thoughts:
  1. 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!
  2. 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!
  3. I know that Baylor had a lower BA, but goodness. It reminded of the Connie days.
  4. 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.
  5. Looks like we won't realistically beat the season HR record. But fingers crossed K-Wash gets another chance to beat the doubles record
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. I don't understand the constant rotation at 3rd. SS is where others should have been trotted out
  9. 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
  10. Although their fielding percentage was much higher than ours, it was nice to play a team having worse fielding than ours
  11. 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!
 
racerx5908 said:
Nice bounce-back from the series against OSU. Complete series shutout? Rare. Thoughts:
  1. 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!
  2. 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!
  3. I know that Baylor had a lower BA, but goodness. It reminded of the Connie days.
  4. 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.
  5. Looks like we won't realistically beat the season HR record. But fingers crossed K-Wash gets another chance to beat the doubles record
  6. 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
  7. 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
  8. I don't understand the constant rotation at 3rd. SS is where others should have been trotted out
  9. 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
  10. Although their fielding percentage was much higher than ours, it was nice to play a team having worse fielding than ours
  11. 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!
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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 :hookem:
 
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Malcom said:
Ellis, do you think LSU would get a regional bid before us?
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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
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Malcom said:
Ellis, do you think LSU would get a regional bid before us?
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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.
 
Ellis21d said:
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.
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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?
 
racerx5908 said:
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?
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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. :headbang:
 
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