They need at least 1 transfer for sure, 2 would be fine as well to not be relying entirely on freshmen for innings. Pease would consider a maybe as #1 option for taking an extra year + being fully healthy, Leavitt doesn't have D1 level control to be a primary starter next year, Hollifield/Valencia given they're barely playing this year can't really count as options for next year.
Gopher Softball 2022
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ClassOf98Gopher
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I would have said yes 24 hours ago. Now the likely answer is no. They have a great strength of schedule… but not enough wins.
Probably 5 Big Ten teams will make the NCAA tourney is my guess.
But more importantly we will make that Big Ten tourney (the only tourney that matters for Big Ten teams since they have zero chance of winning an NCAA tournament) and hopefully we will have it turned around by then to win some games.
4EverAGopher
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What is the word on Leavitt?
How do you turn around a pitching staff that's essentially at zero?
You can beat up the pitchers all you want but if you don't score runs and put pressure on the other team you can't win!!! As has happened MANY times in the past few years! We have not scored a run this weekend in case you didn't notice.
rugger14
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Good point but you cant give up the runs they are giving up.
ClassOf98Gopher
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I think they are in a psychological swoon. It is actually a fairly long season, with a lot of games, and they are clearly laboring now, physically but especially mentally.
To me, it appears that Rugger14 has the better argument that the problems causing the team frustration have started more on the pitching side of the equation now effecting the batters. But I don’t know for sure.
What I do know is that they just have to be tough, very tough, and finish out the year strong enough so they have a 2022 season they can be proud of.
rugger14
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Well I think what we know is that this team is not very good. A fastpitch pitcher is the most important player in all of sports. We.dont have a legitimate ace. You can not overcome that with bats. I love that 98 is optimistic but we do not have a pitcher who can bail us out. Our hitters cant win without an ace pitcher. That is how softball works.
Yes, I noticed perfectly well, but I happened to be writing about the pitching, not the hitting, in case you didn't notice. I was responding to another poster's comment about the Gophers rebuilding their pitching by the time of the BIG tourney. I questioned how that can be done.
Exactly right!
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There is no reason why not one run has crossed the plate for the Gophers against Nebraska.
There are plenty examples of the team giving up a bunch of runs and still managing to score enough to secure a win but I’ll only give you a few of the most recent:
Rutger series- 19 runs allowed, 23 runs scored and we took 2 out of 3.
Iowa series- 13 runs allowed, 23 runs scored and we took 2 out of 3.
The game against South Dakota- 8 runs allowed and we won 9-8.
Nebraska Series so far- 18 runs allowed, ZERO runs scored. 0-2 so far going into the last game.
Do you see the problem here?
Where is the run production?
Why are girls consistently going 0-3,0-2, 2+ K’s a game and they’re not being subbed for?
It seems as though we are the only P5 school in the country that doesn’t believe in pinch/situational hitting.
Who cares if they’re a “starter”. Division 1 softball is a what have you done for me lately business and our coaches didn’t get the memo.
Hansen, Linder, Cox, Valencia, Denson, Costa are fully capable of taking one out or providing a spark but instead we continue to let them just ride the bench. Not like we can do any worse.
Is our pitching thin? I mean we have an infielder pitching for us and another who barely got to pitch at all last season so I believe that question answers itself. Maybe the coaches should have given them more innings earlier in the season and they just might have been more confident by now.
There no reason why we haven’t been able to score a single run against Nebraska. None.
It’s not like we’re facing Montana Fouts or Jordy ball these past couple of days.
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ClassOf98Gopher
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I agree with almost all of this post. It’s frustrating to Gopher fans given what has happened this season so far and caught a lot of us by surprise. Fans are used to seeing something different.
The question I am interested in is the above one. It’s tough because we had the 4th most difficult non conference Strengh of schedule in ncaa softball as measured by current RPI. We had almost no blowouts where it was clear that we could put Hollifield (who clearly needed opportunities to get over what appear to be nerves) and Valencia (who appears to have been thrown into the circle out of team necessity) in games in February to really work out the kinks. If they did put them in we would have lost those games (or lost them worse) and we fans would have been mad about that.
It’s been a tough season and I do feel for Pease especially, who does look to be frustrated by all the tough innings without much backup she is being forced to take. It looks to the observer that she is just being left to slog through it. I don’t know… maybe what Ritter would say is that in the old days that is exactly what pitchers had to do. I doubt Ritter got much for relief 20 years ago when she was pitching. But, obviously, the game has changed and coaches view pitching as a full staff in these more sophisticated times.
Let’s hope Leavitt goes out there today and puts the team on a path to victory with a strong response from the batters.
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I don't know what is going on with the bats. Hrothgar has been on the hitting for several years. It also seems to me that Trachsel liked to go with the starters and Ritter likes to do it as well.
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I really agree with this. I just want to know where the bats have been for a couple of seasons. If my memory serves me correctly, Fiser's losses, especially her last year, came with very very very few run production from the Gopher team.
I also brought up the coaches decisions when it comes to not utililizing our bench players, with Dray as an example. She has batted 4-7 most the season with 12 RBI's.
This team is just going through the motions. There appears to be no spark or energy on the field or coming from the bench or the coaches.
Many of our remaining games are on the BTN and ESPN2. For this program wanting to be recognized in The Big as a legitimate Championship program or a post season contender, they really need to turn this around starting today....at least score some runs.
ClassOf98Gopher
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I don’t miss Coach Allister. She made her choice for her big paycheck (let’s be clear-sighted about her; Stanford money is plenty good). She is a great coach though and I hold nothing against her at all.
I do however greatly miss Fiser and Partain and Kemmetmueller and Brandt. They were leaders on the field and within the team who, despite all the negative things that happened over their 5 years as Gophers, performed game after game. That group of players got results. The win/loss numbers speak for themselves.
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For those of you that follow players HS careers and then the recruiting process, where has this program under estimated? Or are we talking COVID-Super Seniors given a 5th year and the coaching turnover having the largest impact on the present situation?
A lot of recruiting whiffs, DenHartog the only real breakout star out of last 4 years
Pitching. Pitching. Pitching. All championships are won with power pitching. As one pundit pointed out, it's the only sport where the defense has the ball. Where have the Gophers understimate? They haven't recruited a power pitcher since Fiser was in hs, six years ago.
I'm no hitting expert but the Gophers' hitters the past 3 years have been too passive at the plate IMO; by that I mean not enough bat speed. Watching KY, MO, Arkansas, and similar teams, their hitters put on a forceful swing and connect; even their outs are hard hit & they seem to KO less.
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I agree fully about the importance of pitching in softball.
To your question, in my opinion, Rachel Lowery’s injured shoulder really hurt us. Her weak shoulder existed in high school which, honestly, is probably why she came to Minnesota in the first place as opposed to going to Oklahoma with her sister - or someplace like that.
Secondly, I was hoping Kiana Jones could come in and be a power pitching ace for us. She had the stature for it. But, neither us, nor North Carolina, nor the Canadian junior national team ultimately had confidence in her pitching. So, she is a hitter at NC.
Finally, Leavitt will be fine, she is only a Freshman and a lot is on her shoulders, but it would have been better had she hit the ground running more than what is revealed by her current ERA.
All the other pitchers that left over the past few years, well… nobody ever expected them to be ace pitchers I don’t think. Of course we would be in much better shape this year if no-longer-roster-pitchers Dueck was healthy or Hostettler was capable of contributing this year, but those things just were not going to happen.
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The recruiting misses are due to multiple factors. Recruiting rankings, changing coaches, Covid everything, and just plain bad luck with injuries.
Others have questioned the accuracy of recruiting rankings and are right to do so. They are more popularity contest in softball than many other sports. A great example would be Odicci Alexander last season for JMU. She was on nobody's radar because she wasn't on a high profile club team. Yet, she blossomed to lead her team to the WCWS.
Rankings then work the other way too. I see players ranked in the top 100 that I know will not be successful at the school that is recruiting them. They are only on the list due to their team/coach and an inflated ranking. The Gophers have fallen for this too often in the last several years.
Changing coaches has hindered recruiting as the Ole Miss took several of her recruits with, leaving some holes to fill late. Our current coaches should be well versed on the recruiting trail, especially Ritter, but apparently she is not connecting with talented pitching prospects as one would expect. That is the biggest head scratcher for me...how someone who has tutored some of the best pitchers in the game can't attract the next great in the circle?
Covid messed things up for everyone, but the rich got richer as a generalization. And by rich, I mean coaches and programs with a track record of success. We only had the later and that wasn't enough.
I believe as stated before, the reluctance that has developed with this coaching staff to use a greater part of the roster throughout the season has hurt the team in the past couple of years on the field. It is my opimion that it will hurt the program even more in the years to come. Recruits see innings going to players playing poorly. They see how few opportunities are available to show what they can do on game days. That is not attractive for top recruits. Other high profile teams play a significant number of players, especially early in the year. This allows players to determine lineups from their play.
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I just love this sport and it really saddens me to see where we are at today with the Gopher softball program. There is no doubt Ritter has an extreme uphill battle, but if she is making all FINAL DECISIONS every game and in recruiting, I am at a loss for words so many times.
Today's biggest head scratcher for me was the decision to replace Evans with Lindner and finally playing Hansen for Dray. If Hansen is playing with an ongoing injury it is understandable why she hasn't gotten the nod again before today....if not, it makes no sense.
We all know Ritter inherited a program not reamainiing nor heading in the right direction, but I wonder if she is becoming her own worse enemy in some of the present decisions being made by this coaching staff.
Today's biggest head scratcher for me was the decision to replace Evans with Lindner and finally playing Hansen for Dray. If Hansen is playing with an ongoing injury it is understandable why she hasn't gotten the nod again before today....if not, it makes no sense.
We all know Ritter inherited a program not reamainiing nor heading in the right direction, but I wonder if she is becoming her own worse enemy in some of the present decisions being made by this coaching staff.
ClassOf98Gopher
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They are better than the baseball team.
Put one Groenewagen/Fiser level ace pitcher on this team and they would be right there at the top of the conference. I think their roster is good absent that ace pitcher. But, as mentioned by others, that is such an important position.
I agree. Despite various deficiencies, there's nothing wrong with this team that having two REALLY GOOD starting pitchers wouldn't solve. With such pitching, they'd have at least 25 wins now, maybe more. I expected the HC's pitching reputation & Wynn & Richardson's youth & energy to bring in scads of super recruits, especially pitchers. What's up?