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Piper does a good job balancing the dual goals of preparation for the conference season with positioning the team to get the best possible seed in the tournament if they have enough success. Clearly she learned something from the 2017 debacle when Allister only scheduled two Top 25 games (both...

I can assure you that the players and coaches do exactly as you suggest. Once conference play begins, they are laser-focused on winning a B1G regular season championship and/or B1G tournament championship. The only disagreement I have with your take is that coaches of upper-level B1G teams need...

They are positioned pretty well as far as positive nitty gritty metrics are concerned. They have a winning record against Top 100 teams, something only five of the 10 teams currently in the 30-39 positions can say. They have a decent non-conference strength of schedule (32). Only Nebraska (25)...

This is key. Each hitter needs to understand their own strength zones and approach each at bat accordingly. Watch the very best hitting teams going against a top pitcher who rarely makes a mistake and you’ll see that in order to beat top pitching you sometimes have to go after a pitch you can...

She’s in a boot and not in uniform so it may be awhile for her. Agree we could certainly use her now, but I just hope she’s ready for the B1G tourney when pitching depth (or lack thereof) can really make a difference.

Agree it was amazing to watch a team completely turn around a game from an 11-3 run-rule loss to a 12-11 win. We scored 9 runs on 10 hits in the final two innings, while Hambrick, who has struggled mightily this season, held the Buckeyes hitless over the same period. The addition of DeBord, who...

Well, at least the Gophers can fly into St.Louis and take a short bus ride to their hotel lol. Not going to get angry about it. With the introduction of the WBIT, the WNIT is a third-rate tournament, so one cannot expect much from them when they can save some money by advertising a neutral site...

One thing I don’t like to see is taking a pitcher who has been effective out merely because they will be seeing the top of the order for the third or fourth time. Piper isn’t the only coach who does this, and I understand some of the reasoning behind it. But a coach can be too clever sometimes...

In this media market, there are few times when the coach has to actually face the media and answer questions, and rarely are the questioners knowledgeable enough to ask the pertinent questions. One of those few times is this week, when the media always shows up to the stadium prior to the home...

Run-rule 14-4 win over NC State, which had beaten Northwestern and Michigan State so far in this tourney. That is the kind of response I would hope for after yesterday’s debacle. But to even partially make up for lost opportunity yesterday, we need to find a way to beat South Carolina on their...

I was referring to controlling an entire game only to allow five runs in the bottom of the seventh to lose in dramatic fashion, not the state of the program. I’m still bullish there. I have been following Gopher softball since I worked for the U as a grad student and traveled with the team to...

It doesn’t get any worse than this. Margin for error in this tournament is gone. Have to finish the game. Needed to come out of this weekend 3-2 to move up in RPI/KPI. So the weekend can still be salvaged but it will take a lot better play and particularly closing games to do it. And today...

I think it is better for Carly’s career to start out as a head coach at Fairfield and learn how to build a successful program than she would have been starting out at Minnesota or any Power 5 school for that matter. That said, I was always a big fan of Carly’s and thought she was a great hire...

The only season I can recall when we legitimately had .300 hitters through the entire lineup was 2017. Most teams that are good but not great suffer the same fate. Given the pitching BU threw at us, I was happy to see four runs and that should have been enough. Good RPI loss, but have to keep...

Agreed. Especially when they have the cameras in place for these tournaments but only show the games where the host is playing. I’d rather listen to an announcer reading statsbroadcast than just reading stats broadcast myself! Bring back the Stone Age!

Valenica is a freshman. Valencia is a junior. 🤪 Seriously, they load names into Statsbroadcast before the season, so any misspelling will show up game after game unless/until someone fixes it.

This double header with Clemson was really the first time I’ve felt good about the potential of our pitching staff this year and beyond. It also proved that we can rally for a win against a top pitcher (Valerie Cagle). I still think we are too vulnerable to pitchers like Millie Thompson who have...

Richardson is showing me a great deal of promise despite the HR. She throws hard enough that if she gains more command and refines that off-speed a little, she could become a very good pitcher for us.

I get it. But until someone comes along who can match her results, Jess Alister’s tenure will continue to be the standard against which all our coaches are measured.

Piper knows that recruiting pitching talent is top priority, so it’s not for lack of trying. If she gets the talent in here, she won’t waste it. But the elephant in the room, so to speak, since her hire has been whether she and her staff can identify AND recruit talent at a level approaching...