Gopher softball 2021

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So the Gophers looked pretty good via the eye-test (through the TV screen) this past weekend.

Their success in winning the Big Ten, and maybe even some games in the NCAA tournament are quite dependent upon the exact same variables pretty much identified earlier in March:

1. Need a healthy Elle Jensen in the lineup. She doesn’t strike out much and when healthy and fast she will always make getting her our at first, at minimum, a real challenge for opposing defenses.

2. Need quality hitting to continue to come from at least 2-3 members of this group of underclassmen: Cox, Evans, Costa, Jones, Ehlke and potentially others. It appears these batters will be sometimes Pinch Hitters for Brandt, Denson, and maybe Kinch.

3. Our Number 1 and 2 pitchers need to be healthy as innings pile up.

4. Strongest swings need to connect. DenHartog needs to continue to track the pitches as well as she has been, clearly getting past that slow March, and Kinch needs to track the pitches much better than she has over the last couple weeks. She is clearly immensely powerful as shown in that second weekend in Florida... but she has to make contact.
 



ClassOf98Gopher said:
In addition, I hope and expect that if there is a NCAA regional hosted in the upper Midwest this year, this weekend would have terribly damaged Chicago’s claim to host that regional and boosted Minneapolis’s chances by quite a bit.
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I just listened to the In The Circle podcast where they interviewed the NCAA Softball Chair on this. The selection could be fascinating. They implied it's possible that a #1 seed could travel. I wouldn't be surprised if someone like UCLA ends up traveling to a smaller school with great facilities in a more open state like Grand Canyon, NMSU, etc. Other than the West Coast and Big Ten to a lesser extent, most sites are probably obvious by just looking at the rankings.
 



let'sbeclear said:
Here's a really nice article about Katie Kemmetmueller.

d1softball.com

Nurse Katie Always On Call For Minnesota

Katie Kemmetmueller isn't just a talented third baseman and big bat in the lineup for Minnesota. She's also a registered nurse.
d1softball.com d1softball.com
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I noticed that Patrick Reusse recently had a comment or column on Lindaman & her transferring or at least that was his introductory comment, but I didn't find time to read it. Did anyone esle see that article?
 



Any word on big 10 weekly awards. I would think Pease would get pitcher of week and one of the hitters (DenHartog) player of week.
 




If a person shows up at a Gophers softball game without a pass, is there any chance of getting in?
 

As said previously, another big series this wknd. Top 3 teams are tightly packed. It's where those confounding losses to Purdue, Maryland, OSU, Ind really come back to bite. Need to sweep series like this and win series against Mich and the title will be decided.
 

mngolf said:
As said previously, another big series this wknd. Top 3 teams are tightly packed. It's where those confounding losses to Purdue, Maryland, OSU, Ind really come back to bite. Need to sweep series like this and win series against Mich and the title will be decided.
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The thing is, in Big Ten terms, OSU, Maryland, and Indiana are not bad teams. Northwestern, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois have dropped games to those teams.

To be clear, I am not exactly calling the Big Ten softball conference schedule a “meat grinder”. But, these are fairly well financed power 5 programs with an interest in improving in the game of softball... a sport that is getting more tv airplay. I think we should expect slightly more parity in the Big Ten than in previous years.

The four-game weekends (6 those first two weekends) instead of the usual three-game weekends make sweeps far less common. However, they are probably excellent preparation for the NCAA regional weekend.
 



If you remember 2020, they were also slow starting, but we all thought they would pick it up in the conference season that never came.

Not having the early season non-conference to work the kinks out with a new staff might have led to the Maryland & Indiana losses. OSU is good enough to beat Michigan once. I don't know what happened that Saturday game in W. Lafayette, though.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
The thing is, in Big Ten terms, OSU, Maryland, and Indiana are not bad teams. Northwestern, Michigan, Iowa, and Illinois have dropped games to those teams.

To be clear, I am not exactly calling the Big Ten softball conference schedule a “meat grinder”. But, these are fairly well financed power 5 programs with an interest in improving in the game of softball... a sport that is getting more tv airplay. I think we should expect slightly more parity in the Big Ten than in previous years.

The four-game weekends (6 those first two weekends) instead of the usual three-game weekends make sweeps far less common. However, they are probably excellent preparation for the NCAA regional weekend.
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Your last sentence I have been thinking the exact same thing. If able to win this conference, and get to host, this type of scheduling could really help in NCAAs. And I would consider a similar type going forward(with non-conf mixed in too of course).
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
If you remember 2020, they were also slow starting, but we all thought they would pick it up in the conference season that never came.

Not having the early season non-conference to work the kinks out with a new staff might have led to the Maryland & Indiana losses. OSU is good enough to beat Michigan once. I don't know what happened that Saturday game in W. Lafayette, though.
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Even worse that it was at home rather than West Lafayette, though. A Big Ten title contender should expect a sweep against any sub-.500 team no matter where the game is played. However, we made up for that by sweeping at Northwestern when most national pundits predicted 3-1 Northwestern. I am hoping the team found their mojo and this carries over to the rest of the season. It appears Nebraska is significantly better than Purdue this year, although their pitching is still a little suspect.
 

mngolf said:
Your last sentence I have been thinking the exact same thing. If able to win this conference, and get to host, this type of scheduling could really help in NCAAs. And I would consider a similar type going forward(with non-conf mixed in too of course).
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I, too, am holding out hope that the Big Ten champion will be awarded a host spot (if the athletic department applied to be one of the 16 pre-determined sites). However, I am not at all confident that will happen because I believe they are announcing the host sites before we play Michigan. In any event, we really can’t afford to lose any games between now and the announcement if we want any chance to host this season.
 

rwlarson said:
I believe they are announcing the host sites before we play Michigan.
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...But after Michigan plays Northwestern. For all I know Michigan may play very well against Northwestern and sweep them as we did. Obviously, Beiubian and Storako are good enough to win all of their games , but other than pitching, Michigan has not had scary bats at all this year. Lexi Blair is good, but good pitchers like Northwestern has can go right at the rest of their lineup I think. Oft-maligned-on-this-board Minnesota has a scarier batting lineup than Michigan. I think Northwestern can easily win a game, or two, or three.

I think the committee would like, for geographic reasons, to get at least one regional in the upper MidWest. Maybe they can’t get there, but I bet they would like to.
 

I’ll never understand why the Gophers don’t insert a powerful underclassman pinch hitter for the short stop in our batting lineup every single time with the exception of when it is a bunt-sacrifice situation.
 

Beautiful day for a game. Sun setting a bit disturbing to try and follow the game. Wonder how much that is affecting the players?

Not many hits at the plate for the Gophers again. Scoring on poor pitching by Nebraska starter and some errors.

Oh these home plate umps and their so-called strike zones. Male announcer can go bye bye too.
 

Top of 5th anf Fiser running up her ERA. Partain with just an awful awful throw to first leading to fourth team error. As a team, they definitely didn't come to play ball today.

Dueck coming in. Might as well let her pitch.
 
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4EverAGopher said:
Top of 5th anf Fiser running up her ERA. Partain with just awful awful throw to first leading to fourth team error. As a team, they definitely didn't come to play ball today.

Dueck coming in. Might as well let her pitch.
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I am still frustrated that the coaches didn’t have more a killer instinct in the 2nd and 3rd inning where we stranded 4 people on base without going with a pinch hitter. And now we are where we are.

You never know for sure how things would have turned out, obviously, but I just think our odds would have been far better by using a pinch hitter and trying to run up the score.
 


ClassOf98Gopher said:
I am still frustrated that the coaches didn’t have more a killer instinct in the 2nd and 3rd inning where we stranded 4 people on base without going with a pinch hitter. And now we are where we are.

You never know for sure how things would have turned out, obviously, but I just think our odds would have been far better by using a pinch hitter and trying to run up the score.
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I agree. I cannot understand how you let a batter with such a low season average hit with runners in scoring position when you can pinch hit at least once a game and re-enter the player one time. You have several options on the bench just waiting for that opportunity. As you said, you don't know how it will turn out, but a coach should be able to tell if a player is "on" or if a particular pitcher is the type that a player on the bench hits better than the option scheduled to bat.

This is the part of the game that has been frustrating for me this year. I like this team and the players. I just want to see them use all the strengths they have on this team.
 



Kinch sure had a day at the plate!! Maybe she can catch fire and get it going the second half of the B1G season. There is no doubt she has some serious power.
 


Well that was one of the most bizarre games to watch and very frustrating. I am sure the girls felt the same way.

Guess if you want someone to walk, put in Brandt as your batter. She has more walks than hits this year......or did?

Let's see what Gopher team shows up tomorrow.
 


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