Gopher Softball 2022

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ClassOf98Gopher said:
James Madison is a strong program! They were one if the last four teams in the Women’s college World Series just last year!
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Agreed, but that's it on their schedule. And the Gophers didn't play JM, they played Charlotte. These are games that I expect MN to win, just like GCU. Can't have those losses on your schedule. Like Hrothgar said, we have no #1 pitcher and more losses like these are probably coming. Disappointing.
 


Hrothgar said:
My point all along has been that the Gophers lack a dominant pitcher, who shuts down top teams from the first batter on. Right now they have two good starters, who would be fine #2 or #3 starters on a top 10 or top 5 team. Likely a lot of games like v. Grand Canyon & Charlotte are in store.
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OK... let's say that the Gophers lack a dominant pitcher. There are no trades or mid-season call ups from the minors in college sports. What do you do?

Is this season a bust? Should we turn off the channel and enjoy our spring instead of watching this garbage? College sports are horrible because you can't acquire new talent. Maybe Piper should just forfeit the season? Why bother playing?

I am being sarcastic of course. I will be there supporting the team throughout the year. As with every year, I'll hope that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I guess that's why they play the game.
 
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ClassOf98Gopher said:
Ok, I’ll ask, why is that a bad loss? Losing to top 20 team… at their home field… at their annual tournament… by one run doesn’t seem that bad to me.
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A top 20 team? Please show me the poll that has Charlotte in the top 20. Notre Dame beat them 16-1. Charlotte is nowhere near top 20.
 



You are right. I checked the polls and I can’t find them ranked. The misinformation problem was with the Minnesota Gophersports schedule page with has them at #21:

2022 Softball Schedule - University of Minnesota Athletics

The official 2022 Softball schedule for the University of Minnesota Gophers
gophersports.com gophersports.com

I have a lot of problems with that website manager these days (especially as it relates to finding 2022 stats).
 

Congratulations to Emily Leavitt for throwing her first career shutout!

Sure, you don’t like to lose to GCU and Charlotte, but Arizona doesn’t like to lose to CS-Fullerton, either, but it happens. The frustration for me is that four of our five losses have been by one run. We need to do better in situational hitting and pitching situations.

I’m not suggesting this is a better team than 2019, but that WCWS team was 7-5 after 12 games, with a loss to Florida Gulf Coast on the resume.

This team needs to keep gaining confidence. Wichita State is another opportunity for a “good” win. Let’s hope the Gophers can answer the call.
 

Oh, and I’m not even suggesting that either the GCU or Charlotte losses are “bad” losses in the eyes of the NCAA seeding committee. Bad losses are generally losses to 100+ RPI teams. Charlotte certainly won’t be that. GCU remains to be seen, because of the relatively weaker conference they play in, but given their roster — we basically got beat because of four HRs hit by a former Arizona State starter and Oklahoma recruit — they won’t be, either.
 










Ceiling for this year gophers seems like #3 team at a regional and realistic floor is missing postseason
 

ecoperson said:
OK... let's say that the Gophers lack a dominant pitcher. There are no trades or mid-season call ups from the minors in college sports. What do you do?

Is this season a bust? Should we turn off the channel and enjoy our spring instead of watching this garbage? College sports are horrible because you can't acquire new talent. Maybe Piper should just forfeit the season? Why bother playing?

I am being sarcastic of course. I will be there supporting the team throughout the year. As with every year, I'll hope that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. I guess that's why they play the game.
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"What do you do?" Pray that one of your 2 pitchers doesn't get injured, I guess. 1 pitcher can't do the last 45 games. If that happened, they would be forfeiting all pretense to a season. (Strange, they once had 6 pitchers, including Valencia, but in the early season are down to only 2 who are considered usable? Not so strange, if there were some explanation, but fans are left only with silence. So here we are doing educated guessing.)
 

Here we are complaining about the pitching today & they gave up only 4 runs in two games? Sounds like an embarrassinly horrible day for the hitters --- 1 ER in 14 innings?
 

mngolf said:
Wichita was shut out by south Dakota.
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rowdaboat said:
Ceiling for this year gophers seems like #3 team at a regional and realistic floor is missing postseason
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I know nobody else agrees with me, but any aspirations after the Big Ten tournament mean nothing to me. And on that measure, the only measure that matters to me, we are a top 3 team in the Big Ten. Just wait and see.

To me, a big ten team’s softball season is all about preparing for, competing in, and enjoying the Big Ten.

Nothing sets up a Big Ten team’s fans up for frustration more than “regionals seeding” talk.

Any games that the Gophers have after that Big Ten are just a happy desert.
 


Leavitt 3 innings of work (correct me if I have that wrong) and 69 pitches thrown......Ouch
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
Actually 7: Pease, Leavitt, Jones, Dueck, Hollifield, Hostettler, and then unbeknownst to me, Valencia.
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Going off of the one video they posted from Valencia's outing and I wouldn't expect much out of her pitching

 

rowdaboat said:
Going off of the one video they posted from Valencia's outing and I wouldn't expect much out of her pitching
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Do you mean that the ball’s speed on the toss from the catcher back to the empty mound appeared almost as fast as the ball’s speed from the pitcher to the catcher?
 

3.15 era between our two main pitchers is not going to get it done unless we’re hitting lights out and I think that answers itself. Safe to say we’re going to have to score at least 4 runs to secure a win. Also let’s not forget Valencia was recruited as an infielder with a big bat not a pitcher so let’s cut the kid some slack. Just my two cents.
 
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ClassOf98Gopher said:
I know nobody else agrees with me, but any aspirations after the Big Ten tournament mean nothing to me. And on that measure, the only measure that matters to me, we are a top 3 team in the Big Ten. Just wait and see.

To me, a big ten team’s softball season is all about preparing for, competing in, and enjoying the Big Ten.

Nothing sets up a Big Ten team’s fans up for frustration more than “regionals seeding” talk.

Any games that the Gophers have after that Big Ten are just a happy desert.
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We’ve probably seen enough of this team now to know that they are kind of what we thought they’d be this year. A better hitting team with more balance throughout the lineup, and a significantly lesser pitching team. Defensively, they’re probably slightly better than last year.

They are still a competitive team nationally, and near the top of the Big Ten, but not WCWS-caliber, like the 2017 and 2019 teams. Rarely has a team made it to the WCWS in recent years without at least one truly dominating pitcher, and this year, we just don’t seem to have it at this point.

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rwlarson said:
We’ve probably seen enough of this team now to know that they are kind of what we thought they’d be this year. A better hitting team with more balance throughout the lineup, and a significantly lesser pitching team. Defensively, they’re probably slightly better than last year.

They are still a competitive team nationally, and near the top of the Big Ten, but not WCWS-caliber, like the 2017 and 2019 teams. Rarely has a team made it to the WCWS in recent years without at least one truly dominating pitcher, and this year, we just don’t seem to have it at this point.

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Very insightful comments. Acc to my figures, the Gophers ended the wknd going the last 26 innings with only 3 ER; only 1 ER the last 14 inn. Discouraging. Thin staff, yes, but is wasn't the pitching that let things down.
 

Hrothgar said:
Very insightful comments. Acc to my figures, the Gophers ended the wknd going the last 26 innings with only 3 ER; only 1 ER the last 14 inn. Discouraging. Thin staff, yes, but is wasn't the pitching that let things down.
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Yes, there were some encouraging signs on the pitching side of things, as noted above. Without tallying up box scores, I’d say that Jensen and DenHartog had subpar weekends. Those two must be performing well for us to be a good offensive team. I expect a bounce back, and we’ll need it next weekend with three games against Top 10 opponents.
 

rwlarson said:
Yes, there were some encouraging signs on the pitching side of things, as noted above. Without tallying up box scores, I’d say that Jensen and DenHartog had subpar weekends. Those two must be performing well for us to be a good offensive team. I expect a bounce back, and we’ll need it next weekend with three games against Top 10 opponents.
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The Gophers have a good team, but the general level of incoming recruits the past 2-3 years seems down. Only 2 break-through freshmen this year, for example. Were there any at all last year?
 

Hrothgar said:
The Gophers have a good team, but the general level of incoming recruits the past 2-3 years seems down. Only 2 break-through freshmen this year, for example. Were there any at all last year?
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Evans and Kinch are good players. Other sophomores should get some more chances in my opinion.
 

Hrothgar said:
The Gophers have a good team, but the general level of incoming recruits the past 2-3 years seems down. Only 2 break-through freshmen this year, for example. Were there any at all last year?
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That's 50% of the recruiting class. If you add the transfers this year, that is 4 of the 11 players seeing the most time. The incoming class has the potential to add three new faces to the lineup - Schwartz, Oakland, and Burnett.
 

In response to an email I sent to the U of MN Softball Communications...

We are having some difficulties with the website at the moment and stats are not displaying properly as you'll be able to see at the link. They are always available here: https://gophersports.com/sports/softball/stats/2022 but have not created a landing spot for them until we get it sorted out.
 

MNsoftballfan said:
A top 20 team? Please show me the poll that has Charlotte in the top 20. Notre Dame beat them 16-1. Charlotte is nowhere near top 20.
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Just to be accurate...Charlotte is good, maybe not quite top 20 (they are receiving votes), but they just knocked off a talented Virginia Tech team that was ranked #5 5-2....Rochard pitched for VA Tech, so it's a legit win.
 

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