2024 Softball Season

Everyone needs to calm down. So we loss to maybe the 2nd best team in the country, it's not the end of the season. I trust Coach White, period. We are young, maybe overrated but I like this team. Not many, if any team as been tested like we have. I have been a fan since the beginning and I've never seen us play a schedule this tough. The Big 12 is gonna be very tough this year also. These Ladies are gonna be great we just gotta give them time.
I'm all in. :bevo:
 
We are still a good team but just get sloppy and waste at bats sometimes. Pitching will be fine if defense does its job. I'm not sold on being able to have dayton and maloney in the line up at the same time. Having two slapper like hitters in the line up is just a waste. Singles just don't produce runs, when you could easily move Scott to outfield and add Cimunz or Goode to the line up.
 
NBhornfan said:
We are still a good team but just get sloppy and waste at bats sometimes. Pitching will be fine if defense does its job. I'm not sold on being able to have dayton and maloney in the line up at the same time. Having two slapper like hitters in the line up is just a waste. Singles just don't produce runs, when you could easily move Scott to outfield and add Cimunz or Goode to the line up.
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Our defense is our biggest downfall. We should be undefeated if it wasn’t for errors. I actually like Dayton and Maloney in the lineup because they’re at the bottom of the lineup and they both have turned the lineup around multiple time and Dayton doesn’t slap unless she’s slap bunting. Majority of the time, she’s swinging away which is why she gets triples and doubles because she’s fast when it goes through the gap. It’s Maloney who just slaps to get on. I also love that their actual outfielders. Do yall remember the days where he would stick Day, Cimusz, and Whitaker in the outfield just to give them a spot on the found and it will cost us so much because they would drop balls or let balls drop. Defense wins championships. I like Cimucz and Hunter first off the bench in a pinch hitting situation if we need it.
 
The one thing I've been tracking Mike's teams since he's arrived is the poor fielding for his teams. I've then come up with a philosophy that keeps me sane.

If you can only have 2 of these 3 which would you pick:
1. Pitching
2. Hitting
3. Fielding

Connie was Pitching and Fielding. Which allowed her a long tenure until she hit a rough patch of average Pitching. She hired assistant coaches who had good reputations for hitting, and they raised the average by a smidge, but not significantly.

Mike values Pitching and Hitting. After his first year, he fired his hitting coach, a friend of his and hired Singleton and then the hitting really took off. Also, Mike realized that he was doing a poor job trying to coach and manage 5 pitchers, so he hired Patty Ruth Taylor. Yeah, he'd like fielding to be better, but he's betting that pitching and hitting will erase that big deficit in Fielding.

Drives me crazy. But if you can only have 2? Yeah, Fielding is last.
 
Nice bounce back win after a tough mid week road trip. Someone who was at the game let me know....that looked like a very nice crowd. :bevo:
 
Malcom, the crowd was very full. I first realized it when the GA-only outfield stands were both full during the game. Some interesting tidbits:

1. Mike White's wife, if she's got tickets her kids or her sister or friends aren't using, will go to the outfield stands and ask for 2-3 people who are together if they want to come and sit next to her. Tonight it was a mother and teenage daughter brought in from the outfield to sit on row 1.

2. BYU was one of the very, very, very few teams that, after the national anthem plays, stayed along the first base line and waited for the home crowd to sing the Eyes of Texas. Only like, the military schools we've played, waited until our song was over. The rest sprint back into their dugout. Classy, BYU.

3. Saw something I've never seen before. Before the game, all three umps go check the bats on both teams. Assistant coaches take all the team bats and prop them against the backstop. Then the umps go and pick them up, swing them a bit or shake them (as if to check for extra weights inside the bat?). Tonight, they took a BYU bat and declared it illegal and here they are marking down the information in the head umps notebook. I think like make, model, and serial number. Then the bat was taken away from BYU.
XRmWwEe.jpg


4. The bottom of the second inning and Stewart is back at the plate. She is 3-2 and fouls off a ball. And then, suddenly the pitcher is having her hand towel taken away and then there's discussion with the BYU head coach and I look over and Stewie is standing on first? I thought it was a pitching clock violation. But, no they were going back and forth over this yellow cloth. I had to get home and wind my DVR to the play to see what was probably going on. If you watched it, then you know. The first time I've EVER seen a ball awarded to a hitter due to "substance" on the ball.

5. And then 3 home runs. Go Horns!
 
racerx5908 said:
Malcom, the crowd was very full. I first realized it when the GA-only outfield stands were both full during the game. Some interesting tidbits:

1. Mike White's wife, if she's got tickets her kids or her sister or friends aren't using, will go to the outfield stands and ask for 2-3 people who are together if they want to come and sit next to her. Tonight it was a mother and teenage daughter brought in from the outfield to sit on row 1.

2. BYU was one of the very, very, very few teams that, after the national anthem plays, stayed along the first base line and waited for the home crowd to sing the Eyes of Texas. Only like, the military schools we've played, waited until our song was over. The rest sprint back into their dugout. Classy, BYU.

3. Saw something I've never seen before. Before the game, all three umps go check the bats on both teams. Assistant coaches take all the team bats and prop them against the backstop. Then the umps go and pick them up, swing them a bit or shake them (as if to check for extra weights inside the bat?). Tonight, they took a BYU bat and declared it illegal and here they are marking down the information in the head umps notebook. I think like make, model, and serial number. Then the bat was taken away from BYU.
XRmWwEe.jpg


4. The bottom of the second inning and Stewart is back at the plate. She is 3-2 and fouls off a ball. And then, suddenly the pitcher is having her hand towel taken away and then there's discussion with the BYU head coach and I look over and Stewie is standing on first? I thought it was a pitching clock violation. But, no they were going back and forth over this yellow cloth. I had to get home and wind my DVR to the play to see what was probably going on. If you watched it, then you know. The first time I've EVER seen a ball awarded to a hitter due to "substance" on the ball.

5. And then 3 home runs. Go Horns!
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The ridiculousness over the towel and BYU switching pitchers for what seemed like every batter, the game was at 2 hours after the 4th inning. That kind of crap and all the replays make it almost unwatchable. I've never seen so much drama over a towel, and the pitcher had to leave. Cat and Alex didn't tell us if she was disqualified, but I guess she was. If it was supposed to give BYU an advantage it sure wasn't working, and it would have been 15 if Jolie knew you can't run to 3rd before you know if the outfielder catches a fly or not. And Mia lollygagged to home so her run didn't count. Duh! I hope Mike got on them after the game. That's how you loose close games, as this team should certainly know by now.
 
Run Pincher said:
The ridiculousness over the towel and BYU switching pitchers for what seemed like every batter, the game was at 2 hours after the 4th inning. That kind of crap and all the replays make it almost unwatchable. I've never seen so much drama over a towel, and the pitcher had to leave. Cat and Alex didn't tell us if she was disqualified, but I guess she was. If it was supposed to give BYU an advantage it sure wasn't working, and it would have been 15 if Jolie knew you can't run to 3rd before you know if the outfielder catches a fly or not. And Mia lollygagged to home so her run didn't count. Duh! I hope Mike got on them after the game. That's how you loose close games, as this team should certainly know by now.
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When Joley got out on that fly, I was thinking this is the THIRD brainfart running error by her, a 5th year player! But, then she gives you a 3-run HR and you shrug your shoulders. And yeah, Mia can sometimes be a bit lazy when it isn't all about her.

We thought this pitcher shuffle was because they were running out of pitchers or that they wanted to save up their ace for Saturday. I just looked up their roster and they have 7 pitchers! Wow! I mean, they're all bad, but still 7 pitchers!
pkXhh3H.png
 
racerx5908 said:
When Joley got out on that fly, I was thinking this is the THIRD brainfart running error by her, a 5th year player! But, then she gives you a 3-run HR and you shrug your shoulders. And yeah, Mia can sometimes be a bit lazy when it isn't all about her.

We thought this pitcher shuffle was because they were running out of pitchers or that they wanted to save up their ace for Saturday. I just looked up their roster and they have 7 pitchers! Wow! I mean, they're all bad, but still 7 pitchers!
pkXhh3H.png
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That's what I was thinking. It doesn't matter how many they have if they all suck. May not matter though, good chance this ends up being a 1 game series.
 
Washington sac fly. Horns up 5-3 in 6th.
Stewart drives in another run 6-3, and another scores on throwing miscue. 7-3 Texas!!
Headed to top of 7.
 
I only found out about the double header as I was going through the gates and our friendly ushers told us Friday was converted to a double-header. And then, they required us to leave the stadium completely and come back! The picked up loose trash and swept peanut shells into the corner for later. Whereas we went to our car to pick up some sweatshirts, many people just kept walking to their cars, getting in and driving off.

Sent a message off to CDC lamenting that we lost half our audience because of this move. He did respond that he agreed and would talk to the operations folks about the next time this might happen.
 
Run Pincher said:
The ridiculousness over the towel and BYU switching pitchers for what seemed like every batter, the game was at 2 hours after the 4th inning. That kind of crap and all the replays make it almost unwatchable. I've never seen so much drama over a towel, and the pitcher had to leave. Cat and Alex didn't tell us if she was disqualified, but I guess she was. If it was supposed to give BYU an advantage it sure wasn't working, and it would have been 15 if Jolie knew you can't run to 3rd before you know if the outfielder catches a fly or not. And Mia lollygagged to home so her run didn't count. Duh! I hope Mike got on them after the game. That's how you loose close games, as this team should certainly know by now.
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Pincher, hats off to you...I've never read the word "lollygagged" in a post..well done, well done!!
 
At the start of the double header, we finished watching the umps check the Texas bats. We've always thought they checked the bags for illegal bats, those that could give a team the advantage, but then after they're checked, they get hustled back into the dugout. Then, couldn't modifications be done to them then?

So I yelled at the umps to see if they could answer a question. One (young) ump did turn around and engage us. At first she was wary, like she thought we were going to give her a hard time. We asked what they were checking for in the bats. She said they checked for cracks, flattened parts, imbalance, or any weakened areas.

It was interesting all these years we thought it was a fair play issue when it was a safety issue.
 
That is interesting if puzzling.
I am 100% sure each team's staff very carefully scrutinizes their own team's bats for any issues.
 
Another interesting nugget that might not have made it to the broadcast was that Mike White has been having issues the last 2 years with remembering to check players back into the game correctly with the umps.

Yesterday there was an example that started the inning before, Atwood made it to a base and Mike didn't want her to run and put in Wallace. Standard procedure. But then the next inning Atwood came back up to bat and took two balls before Singleton realized that Mike hadn't checked her back into the game. Mike hustles over to the ump and does the paperwork, mid-bat, to check Atwood back into the game. She eventually made it to first on a walk.

I asked our seatmate, who is a high school ump, what would have happened if Atwood had made it to first without being correctly checked in. He said that if the BYU coach had protested the use of an illegal player AFTER as she left home plate and BEFORE she touched first base, Atwood would have been out. But once she was on first, then there would be no penalty. Also, the ump said that the BYU coach may have known about this and could have just silently been waiting to see the result of the at-bat.

As I was explaining this to neighbors during the second game, they were confused why the penalty would be dissolved once Atwood reached first. I shrugged and assumed that if they caught the error many at-bats or even inning later, it would be insane to go and "wind back" the results of an illegal substitution.
 
racerx5908 said:
At the start of the double header, we finished watching the umps check the Texas bats. We've always thought they checked the bags for illegal bats, those that could give a team the advantage, but then after they're checked, they get hustled back into the dugout. Then, couldn't modifications be done to them then?

So I yelled at the umps to see if they could answer a question. One (young) ump did turn around and engage us. At first she was wary, like she thought we were going to give her a hard time. We asked what they were checking for in the bats. She said they checked for cracks, flattened parts, imbalance, or any weakened areas.

It was interesting all these years we thought it was a fair play issue when it was a safety issue.
Click to expand...

This is also them checking for advantages. Some of the older bats, like Hawaii used that one year they hit all the homers, would get hotter with more swings. They would be almost bald and somehow hitting the ball further. They would get a little flat too.
 
For those of you who couldn't watch it. These two clips, in the early innings!, is pretty indicative on how it went for us and them.

 
This was huge win over Florida State. It was the first time Florida State has been shut out all year. I was nervous because it’s no secret their pitching isn’t as good as it was. However, offense is what wins Florida State games and keeps them in games. Florida State has beaten Stanford, Texas Tech, Charlotte and Duke with their offense. They lost 10-20 to Georgia putting up 10 runs and also put up 10 runs against UCLA when they lost to them. I’m really proud of Mac using her effective dropball and even Czech. She got alot of swing and misses. Her backdoor curve and changeup was on fire last night. Texas leads the country in batting average and we are 5th in ERA. This was a good win for us.
 
Man it would suck playing softball in cold weather. It took awhile to discover why, but it SNOWED overnight in Ames.
 
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That second game was tight! I was getting worried with the lack of hits. I kept thinking "Okay second or third time through, we start learning the pitcher's tendencies and get better. But the problem is we're doing down 1-2-3 and won't turn over the lineup until later in the game". And I guess that's what happened.
 
Texas finally figured out if the UCF pitcher started off with a change-up, more than likely a fastball was coming 2nd. If starting off with the fastball, she’d follow up with a change up. Or so that’s what it looked like to me.
Good win for sure. Let’s sweep em tomorrow!!
 
Mia not starting?

Katie Stewart not starting for second straight game…

Hope all is okay! Stewart has been in a bit of a slump and Cimusz has been great. Mia not in is strange.
 
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