Gopher Softball 2024

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Chase the Rise said:
After this past weekend, I don't see this happening. They have to try and go 5-0 on the weekend and I'm not sure, based on games last weekend, that the trust is there for any of the freshmen pitchers yet.
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Totally disappointed with this weekend. Lack of hitting and poor pitching, especially Hambrick. Coach needs to change pitchers after two rotation’s cause they’re getting hit hard the third time through. I was thinking this could be a 5-0 weekend, now if end up 0-5. Time for the hitters to step up and deliver.
Chase the Rise said:
After this past weekend, I don't see this happening. They have to try and go 5-0 on the weekend and I'm not sure, based on games last weekend, that the trust is there for any of the freshmen pitchers yet.
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Chase the Rise said:
After this past weekend, I don't see this happening. They have to try and go 5-0 on the weekend and I'm not sure, based on games last weekend, that the trust is there for any of the freshmen pitchers yet.
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ClassOf98Gopher said:
Because 305 other NCAA teams are tying just as hard to get talent. It’s tough if you don’t have natural advantages.
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What natural advantages do states like Indiana, Oklahoma, or Kansas have? I'd say the true advantage is high energy, charismatic coaches able & willing to hit the road relentlessly for talent, plus an ability to teach the game to young people. Especially teach it to players with the ability to perform what they're taught.
 
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PreacherRoe said:
What natural advantages do states like Indiana, Oklahoma, or Kansas have? I'd say the true advantage is high energy, charismatic coaches able & willing to hit the road relentlessly for talent, plus an ability to teach the game to young people. Especially teach it to players with the ability to perform what they're taught.
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I don’t know what Indiana or Kansas have to do with anything, but the state of Oklahoma is the annual host of the women’s college World Series. And Oklahoma is a helluva lot warmer in the months of February, March and April (core NCAA softball season months) as compared to Minnesota.
 


PreacherRoe said:
Answering my own question, Gophers brought in Chavez, Oakland, & Krapf in a short period, now no new players of comparable talent this year. How can a program progress at this slow rate? The bottom half of the batting order produces nothing and no new top national level pitching talent out of high school since Fiser 8 years ago. The program is stagnating without better recruiting.
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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 what Allister did — because that is the level required to become and remain nationally relevant.

There’s no sugarcoating it — this has historically been a tough place to be nationally relevant. I think the conference gaining strength will help some, but cold-climate softball programs aren’t for everybody.

That said, the right coach can do it. We saw it first-hand, and some of us may have been lulled into thinking just making the tournament was the floor for this program. It’s not.

Piper cares tremendously about this program. She was here before Allister came and set the wheels in motion for its rise to prominence. She does not want to be known as the coach that oversaw its descent back into mediocrity. But the jury is out on her ability to convince the players — particularly pitchers — needed to win at a high level to come here.

As a Minnesota fan, the frustrating thing is that Piper‘s track record as a pitching coach stacks up against anyone in the country. You would think that alone would be enough to get prominent pitchers interested in joining this program. But unfortunately, to date, other than Pease as a transfer, and the enigmatic Leavitt, she just hasn’t been able to do it.

Maybe one of the freshman pitchers will have an epiphany and suddenly start shutting teams down. But ace-level promise usually shows itself fairly early with dominance over opponents we should dominate, and we just haven’t seen anything close to that out of any of them yet.

For those of you starting to call for a change in the head coach position, I think you’ll need to wait at least two more seasons. If at that time a clear downward trend has been established, Coyle might consider letting Piper go. Maybe. She has earned some slack for all she has done for Gopher softball as both a player and a coach. I hope that doesn’t happen, because I like Piper and what she has given to this program. But I also want to be a fan of a nationally relevant program again.

We are losing right now, primarily because our record in one-run games is so atrocious. Hope we can right the ship in the next two weeks. There are still opportunities for some high-profile wins to gain some confidence and have a successful season.
 


rwlarson said:
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 what Allister did — because that is the level required to become and remain nationally relevant.
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If you look at the players that have contributed the most to the Gopher program over the past 10 years, none of those players had Florida State, or Alabama, or Oklahoma, or Washington beating down their doors.

The great players I am most referring to: Groenewagen, Partain, Fiser, Pease, DenHartog; they really worked to make themselves great which benefited the softball program. Yes, I admit that I think some other programs were at least aware of Fiser in high school, but most of our best players have flown under the radar in high school.

I just don’t think it is useful here to have all this Gopher fan anger directed at Ritter and her recruiting. We have some players on our team that really need to step up and play better. The players have to bear this burden as well.
 

Bases loaded with one out and Gophers run into a DP, you can't make this shit up.
 



Now that they have some runs on the board, let's hope pitching doesn't screw things up.
 

Looks and feels like a Gopher win, but still have to play the last half inning and with how fragile our pitching can be a 9 run lead is not safe.
 

Finally put together a strong game. Enter pitch 5 good innings she struggled at times but worked her way through and blanked the Lobos. Offense was stagnant the first few innings, but second time through the order Gophers punished the starter and kept on adding runs.
 

WayOfTheGopher said:
Finally put together a strong game. Enter pitch 5 good innings she struggled at times but worked her way through and blanked the Lobos. Offense was stagnant the first few innings, but second time through the order Gophers punished the starter and kept on adding runs.
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Enter doesn't have super stuff, but she gets batters hitting balls on the ground and lets her infield work.
 



rwlarson said:
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 what Allister did — because that is the level required to become and remain nationally relevant.

There’s no sugarcoating it — this has historically been a tough place to be nationally relevant. I think the conference gaining strength will help some, but cold-climate softball programs aren’t for everybody.

That said, the right coach can do it. We saw it first-hand, and some of us may have been lulled into thinking just making the tournament was the floor for this program. It’s not.

Piper cares tremendously about this program. She was here before Allister came and set the wheels in motion for its rise to prominence. She does not want to be known as the coach that oversaw its descent back into mediocrity. But the jury is out on her ability to convince the players — particularly pitchers — needed to win at a high level to come here.

As a Minnesota fan, the frustrating thing is that Piper‘s track record as a pitching coach stacks up against anyone in the country. You would think that alone would be enough to get prominent pitchers interested in joining this program. But unfortunately, to date, other than Pease as a transfer, and the enigmatic Leavitt, she just hasn’t been able to do it.

Maybe one of the freshman pitchers will have an epiphany and suddenly start shutting teams down. But ace-level promise usually shows itself fairly early with dominance over opponents we should dominate, and we just haven’t seen anything close to that out of any of them yet.

For those of you starting to call for a change in the head coach position, I think you’ll need to wait at least two more seasons. If at that time a clear downward trend has been established, Coyle might consider letting Piper go. Maybe. She has earned some slack for all she has done for Gopher softball as both a player and a coach. I hope that doesn’t happen, because I like Piper and what she has given to this program. But I also want to be a fan of a nationally relevant program again.

We are losing right now, primarily because our record in one-run games is so atrocious. Hope we can right the ship in the next two weeks. There are still opportunities for some high-profile wins to gain some confidence and have a successful season.
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Great comments, RW, on a complex topic that could take a whole book. I feel that if you have a coach who produces big wins, players of outstanding talent will come there to play, no matter where it is, north, south, east, or west. (For example, who'd ever heard of Indiana softball until they won 22 games straight last year?) Allister had the smarts & charisma to attract talented players who had the right psychological understanding. She said she brought recruits to see the MN campus in the dead of winter so they'd know what to expect. She was also suave enough to enter recruits' living rooms (either literally or by social media) and convince parents and recruits that, yes, this is the right place. That was brilliant qualitative work on her part. It doesn't need to be quantitative. The Gophers teams up to and including 2019 came back and won with the kind of drive and verve to come from behind and win the close games we're seeing them lose recently. Clutch hitting and strikeout pitching wins those kinds of games. The players who produce such results are out there, and they will come to MN if approached in the right way, not strictly with Xs and Os.
 


PreacherRoe said:
… Allister had the smarts & charisma to attract talented players who had the right psychological understanding. She said she brought recruits to see the MN campus in the dead of winter so they'd know what to expect. She was also suave enough to enter recruits' living rooms (either literally or by social media) and convince parents and recruits that, yes, this is the right place. That was brilliant qualitative work on her part….
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I am so sick of reading/hearing the name Jess Allister.

Jess Allister left us for another softball program. Jess Allister is not walking through that door.
 


ClassOf98Gopher said:
I am so sick of reading/hearing the name Jess Allister.

Jess Allister left us for another softball program. Jess Allister is not walking through that door.
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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.
 

PreacherRoe said:
What natural advantages do states like Indiana, Oklahoma, or Kansas have? I'd say the true advantage is high energy, charismatic coaches able & willing to hit the road relentlessly for talent, plus an ability to teach the game to young people. Especially teach it to players with the ability to perform what they're taught.
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Oklahoma has the natural advantage of paying 40k to all of their players
 



mngolf said:
Oklahoma has the natural advantage of paying 40k to all of their players
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I was waiting for a post like this. I'm firmly in the camp we would be doing much better in all sports including softball if NIL wasn't around. Personally I'm getting sick of all this.
 

NI
#2Gopher said:
I was waiting for a post like this. I'm firmly in the camp we would be doing much better in all sports including softball if NIL wasn't around. Personally I'm getting sick of all this.
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NIL has ruined all of college sports. With the latest ruling allowing students to negotiate NIL deals, these kids won’t need to go pro, they can make their money while in school. They need to set a limit on NIL money for every school, then the schools can distribute it as they see fit. If they want to spend it all on football or spread it to other sports they can make that choice. For equity sake each school should start with a equal share.
 

Nipomo 56 said:
NI

NIL has ruined all of college sports. With the latest ruling allowing students to negotiate NIL deals, these kids won’t need to go pro, they can make their money while in school. They need to set a limit on NIL money for every school, then the schools can distribute it as they see fit. If they want to spend it all on football or spread it to other sports they can make that choice. For equity sake each school should start with a equal share.
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I'm hoping the alliance between sec and B1G will address this.
 

mngolf said:
For them, yes. Don't offer how great their coach is while leaving this fact out.
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I would think natural refers to location, climate, and the academic standards of the university, and the rigor of its athletic dept., not to super-imposed financial rewards to the athletes.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
If you look at the players that have contributed the most to the Gopher program over the past 10 years, none of those players had Florida State, or Alabama, or Oklahoma, or Washington beating down their doors.

The great players I am most referring to: Groenewagen, Partain, Fiser, Pease, DenHartog; they really worked to make themselves great which benefited the softball program. Yes, I admit that I think some other programs were at least aware of Fiser in high school, but most of our best players have flown under the radar in high school.

I just don’t think it is useful here to have all this Gopher fan anger directed at Ritter and her recruiting. We have some players on our team that really need to step up and play better. The players have to bear this burden as well.
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Your forgetting Sara Moulton, the key piece in starting the Allister team runs. Gopher fans were spoiled by the decade long run of Moulton, Groenewegen and Fiser in the circle.
 

Panthadad2 said:
Your forgetting Sara Moulton, the key piece in starting the Allister team runs. Gopher fans were spoiled by the decade long run of Moulton, Groenewegen and Fiser in the circle.
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Very true but I considered it a blessing and wonderful to see this program able to compete at the level it did.
 

4EverAGopher said:
Very true but I considered it a blessing and wonderful to see this program able to compete at the level it did.
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Not sure if I follow. Your comment refers to the past when NIL wasn't around. Now it is here where NIL is destroying college sports along with many fans getting a sour taste of college athletics leaving due to the fact that their NIL isn't high enough. Money continues to be the root of all problems.
 

I strictly meant to make a comment on those past players who brought a lot of pitching talent to this program. I am glad we had them in our program, at that time. I understand we might not ever see that high level talent in pitching again because of the NIL.
 

NIL is presenting more of an issue that you would like to think. Even Gasso's comment in regards to having 6 pitchers on staff that she feels can go at any time. Oklahoma "type" players are OK sitting on the bench, aiming for a national title, getting playing time when they can, because they are all getting 50k in NIL money....some significantly more than that, in addition to the 12 scholarships they can divide up how ever they see fit. In essence they have entire roster of full scholarship kids and making money on top of that. How does anyone compete with that? And they aren't the only ones.

The spread of top 10 teams and the rest of the field is only going to widen entirely due to NIL, because they would rather get a kid 50k in NIL money then go see them play for a different team.

Dinkytown Athletics (DA) is part of the problem. It's not for all athletes, some B10 schools have a collective that gets each athlete something...really works hard to navigate the NIL landscape. Dinkytown athletics isn't doing Gopher Softball any good. Well kind of...the only two players even involved with DA...Chavez and Oakland....and it's ironic that this board talks about those two leaving the most....want to know why they wont? NIL and DA (unless something better NIL-wise comes along).. want the team to improve their recruiting? Get a different collective outside of DA.
 

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