Gopher Softball 2024

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rugger14

rugger14

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Time to get some discussion about next year started. I am looking forward to seeing what folks are thinking about 2024. Ski-U-Mah!
 

Concerned about portal of course. Both ways. Clearwater tourney has me worried.
 

First order of business is determining how many roster spots/positions we will need to fill via the portal. I really hope our major offensive threats choose to stay and continue to build this back to a consistent Top 25 program that is at least in the conversation to host regionals every year.
 

The outfield will need to be rebuilt, more production from 1st base, need the pitching staff to produce either from the development of current pitchers, incoming freshman, or the portal.
 

A note to the Minnesota Softball Coaching Staff -

I think this has been brought up way back......if there are any Partain CLONES out there, please please please convince a couple of them to come to Minnesota.
 


a couple of big ten pitchers in the portal - ashley miller from michigan state and trinity schlotterbeck from maryland.
 


Hambrick, Schwartz and the freshman will be a good starting point. If you can find a top pitcher in the portal, of course you take her. Chavez, Oakland, Breezy and Taylor is a great starting point. Not sure if Strelow is coming back for a 5 th year. She was not announced at Sr. Day. Plenty of holes to fill, but they will be fun to watch.
 

mngolf said:
Concerned about portal of course. Both ways. Clearwater tourney has me worried.
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Clearwater is going to be insanely difficult. Only 2 teams that weren’t in NCAA’s. Wisconsin and North Carolina.

We won’t see WI….if we can come out of Clearwater with 2 wins it’s a good weekend, 3 will get us back to NCAA’s
 



Go to the Mary Nutter ...The best tournament in the nation. Give the kids a chance to have warm weather and some of the best programs . You also get exposure to a pool of soe of the best players on the west coast. They will have more people watching the games then they had at the regionals. No excuse not to be there.
 

dlw4gophers said:
Hambrick, Schwartz and the freshman will be a good starting point. If you can find a top pitcher in the portal, of course you take her. Chavez, Oakland, Breezy and Taylor is a great starting point. Not sure if Strelow is coming back for a 5 th year. She was not announced at Sr. Day. Plenty of holes to fill, but they will be fun to watch.
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I liked the improvement shown by both Schwartz and Hambrick. I think they both will be solid next year.
 

Gopher68 said:
I liked the improvement shown by both Schwartz and Hambrick. I think they both will be solid next year.
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I agree with the improvement and I think the incoming freshman class has a lot of potential.
 

twinsbballfan said:
Go to the Mary Nutter ...The best tournament in the nation. Give the kids a chance to have warm weather and some of the best programs . You also get exposure to a pool of soe of the best players on the west coast. They will have more people watching the games then they had at the regionals. No excuse not to be there.
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I don’t know the specifics, but I know Allister did not like something about the Mary Nutter, whether it was how they handled assigning the matchups, or the fact that some of the fields aren’t the greatest to play on, especially if it rains, or both. I vaguely recall she may have wanted assurances regarding the number of top tier teams we would play, as well as field assignments, and the Nutter wouldn’t do it. Maybe someone else will remember the specifics. Whether Piper feels the same way is anyone’s guess. But it is a fact that we haven’t been there under her, while Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Michigan are there pretty much every year.

We did play at the Judy Garmin last year, which isn’t much of a step down from the Nutter in terms of potential competition, but it is a smaller event. We played Baton Rouge Region host LSU, Fayetteville Region champ Oregon, Fullerton (the host school), and Loyola Marymount there, before heading down to San Diego to take on Los Angeles Regional champ San Diego State. All NCAA tournament teams.

We played in the Baylor tournament the week of the Mary Nutter, so we still played two games against a strong NCAA tournament team (the only team to beat Oklahoma so far this year) when they were still at full strength.
 



rwlarson said:
I don’t know the specifics, but I know Allister did not like something about the Mary Nutter, whether it was how they handled assigning the matchups, or the fact that some of the fields aren’t the greatest to play on, especially if it rains, or both. I vaguely recall she may have wanted assurances regarding the number of top tier teams we would play, as well as field assignments, and the Nutter wouldn’t do it. Maybe someone else will remember the specifics. Whether Piper feels the same way is anyone’s guess. But it is a fact that we haven’t been there under her, while Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Michigan are there pretty much every year.

We did play at the Judy Garmin last year, which isn’t much of a step down from the Nutter in terms of potential competition, but it is a smaller event. We played Baton Rouge Region host LSU, Fayetteville Region champ Oregon, Fullerton (the host school), and Loyola Marymount there, before heading down to San Diego to take on Los Angeles Regional champ San Diego State. All NCAA tournament teams.

We played in the Baylor tournament the week of the Mary Nutter, so we still played two games against a strong NCAA tournament team (the only team to beat Oklahoma so far this year) when they were still at full strength.
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If Allister had issues with the field, we had an exceptionally wet winter this year. If Ritter schedules either Nutter or Garmin along with Clearwater it will be a strong non conference schedule.
 

rwlarson said:
I don’t know the specifics, but I know Allister did not like something about the Mary Nutter, whether it was how they handled assigning the matchups, or the fact that some of the fields aren’t the greatest to play on, especially if it rains, or both. I vaguely recall she may have wanted assurances regarding the number of top tier teams we would play, as well as field assignments, and the Nutter wouldn’t do it. Maybe someone else will remember the specifics. Whether Piper feels the same way is anyone’s guess. But it is a fact that we haven’t been there under her, while Wisconsin, Northwestern, and Michigan are there pretty much every year.

We did play at the Judy Garmin last year, which isn’t much of a step down from the Nutter in terms of potential competition, but it is a smaller event. We played Baton Rouge Region host LSU, Fayetteville Region champ Oregon, Fullerton (the host school), and Loyola Marymount there, before heading down to San Diego to take on Los Angeles Regional champ San Diego State. All NCAA tournament teams.

We played in the Baylor tournament the week of the Mary Nutter, so we still played two games against a strong NCAA tournament team (the only team to beat Oklahoma so far this year) when they were still at full strength.
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This is exactly correct. Mary Nutter, IMO is not a better tournament than Clearwater for this reason. Clearwater had more NCAA post season teams than Nutter, and Nutter has far too many middle of the road teams and coaches don’t get to pick their opponents. Clearwater you are guaranteed good competition, Nutter is a crapshoot.
 

Chase the Rise said:
This is exactly correct. Mary Nutter, IMO is not a better tournament than Clearwater for this reason. Clearwater had more NCAA post season teams than Nutter, and Nutter has far too many middle of the road teams and coaches don’t get to pick their opponents. Clearwater you are guaranteed good competition, Nutter is a crapshoot.
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Clearwater has quickly turned into maybe the top non-con tournament and has strong ESPN support (I believe), but Nutter still seems to create the most hoopla IMO. I don't care if it looks like they're playing on converted slowpitch fields at times. All those players played on fields like that their whole lives and it seems old school cool. I'd love to attend one of these years.
 

I think our schedule will be fine. I am concerned about pitching. Our best pitchers have been good as freshmen. I think we need an ace with Pease gone. I am fine with our other pitchers but they didn't show ace quality to me. Good additional arms to have on the staff but not capable of owning games all season. I would be very happy if they prove me wrong.
 

rugger14 said:
I think our schedule will be fine. I am concerned about pitching. Our best pitchers have been good as freshmen. I think we need an ace with Pease gone. I am fine with our other pitchers but they didn't show ace quality to me. Good additional arms to have on the staff but not capable of owning games all season. I would be very happy if they prove me wrong.
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I think with Pease gone we should see more growth from Schwartz & Hambrick. Without a true ace the incoming freshman may find a larger role in the pitching rotation.
 

The first major issue/question before any talk about getting any in-transfers through the portal is who is leaving, including seniors with their COVID year of eligibility. The math of roster size will control so much here.

Remember, during senior day they only honored Pease, Bradley, and DenHartog. So what commitments have they made to Enter, Strelow and Cox for 2024?

The math starts like this: we had a roster count in 2023 of 19. If only three leave, and everyone else stays, that is 16, plus we know there are 7 freshmen coming in for 2024 so adding them makes 23.

I very much doubt an ultimate Gopher 2024 roster size over 21, meaning at least 3 (and more likely 4 or even 5) of our existing players are going to have to out-transfer before we even think about any in-transfers.
 

Not necessarily 100% accurate. The NCAA travel size is limited to 22 athletes That means they can have over the alloyed 22, they just can’t travel them. They obviously are also bound by only 12 equivalency scholarships….which means there may be more players on the roster that are non-scholarship athletes.
 


It looks like the first Gopher softball player in the portal so far in 2023 is Claire Ceynowa. I am just a bit surprised by that.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
It looks like the first Gopher softball player in the portal so far in 2023 is Claire Ceynowa. I am just a bit surprised by that.
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I’m not surprised, it’s been 3 years and she got about a dozen at-bats this season and with krapf behind the plate her playing is greatly diminished. I appreciate her staying as long as she did and I think she will be a good addition for someone.
 

Nipomo 56 said:
I’m not surprised, it’s been 3 years and she got about a dozen at-bats this season and with krapf behind the plate her playing is greatly diminished. I appreciate her staying as long as she did and I think she will be a good addition for someone.
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I hear what you're saying but personally, since she's not going to have a softball playing career after college why not just stay and finish it out here?
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
It looks like the first Gopher softball player in the portal so far in 2023 is Claire Ceynowa. I am just a bit surprised by that.
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I wish her well. She saw little playing time while with the Gophers. In addition to Krapf, there are two solid catchers in the incoming class. Claire, thank you for your contribution to Gopher softball.
 

mngolf said:
I hear what you're saying but personally, since she's not going to have a softball playing career after college why not just stay and finish it out here?
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There are any number of reasons she might have gone into the portal, but if she wants one shot at being a regular player before her softball career ends, this is her last chance to find the place where she has the best chance to do so.
 

mngolf said:
I hear what you're saying but personally, since she's not going to have a softball playing career after college why not just stay and finish it out here?
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Good question. Maybe she just wants a chance to get more playing time in her senior year.
 

My Way-too-early opening day lineup prediction:

1-Chavez (5) (righty)
2-Ehlke (3) (lefty)
3-Oakland (6) (righty)
4-Krapf (2) (righty)
5-Leaschber (7) (lefty)
6-Burnett (8) (righty)
7-Valencia (9) (righty)
8-Hooper (4) (lefty)
9-Schwartz (DH) (righty)

Pitchers - Hambrick, Schwartz, Richardson, Snippes, Greyson

It will be interesting to see which freshmen and Sophomores step up and display that they need to be in the lineup, probably replacing Schwartz at DH to allow her to be 100 percent focused on pitching… where I very much expect we will need her much more in 2024.
 

ClassOf98Gopher said:
My Way-too-early opening day lineup prediction:

1-Chavez (5) (righty)
2-Ehlke (3) (lefty)
3-Oakland (6) (righty)
4-Krapf (2) (righty)
5-Leaschber (7) (lefty)
6-Burnett (8) (righty)
7-Valencia (9) (righty)
8-Hooper (4) (lefty)
9-Schwartz (DH) (righty)

Pitchers - Hambrick, Schwartz, Richardson, Snippes, Greyson

It will be interesting to see which freshmen and Sophomores step up and display that they need to be in the lineup, probably replacing Schwartz at DH to allow her to be 100 percent focused on pitching… where I very much expect we will need her much more in 2024.
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Obviously depends on any transfers in or out. I like your lineup. But I have a feeling that Ehlke is going to DH. She may play 1st on days Schwartz starts at pitcher, but I think Schwartz will stay at 1st unless pitching. Many opportunities to play Ehlke at 1st this year but it didn't happen, they must not like her there.
 

mngolf said:
Obviously depends on any transfers in or out. I like your lineup. But I have a feeling that Ehlke is going to DH. She may play 1st on days Schwartz starts at pitcher, but I think Schwartz will stay at 1st unless pitching. Many opportunities to play Ehlke at 1st this year but it didn't happen, they must not like her there.
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Is Strelow and Cox coming back? As long as Ehlke’s bat is in the lineup it doesn’t matter to me if she’s DH or at first base.
 

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