Women’s Softball-what ails the Lady Gators this year?

PastyStoole

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I haven't watched a game all year until yesterday, of course, but I'm a little disappointed. It seems like the Gator staff is recruiting for heft now. I felt like I was watching a lesbian bowling league.
 
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Scott512

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All it takes is an umpiring crew that gets picky about it and it could devastate us. That happened in the WCWS with Stephanie Brombacher several years ago. The crew there was calling illegal pitches on her so often, Walton had to quit using her and it, basically, killed our chances of winning.
That was a disaster against UCLA I think it was 2010 or 11. It was just terrible and embarrassing and it got called at the biggest time in the biggest games when that had not been the case all season.
 

Scott512

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They are young with a few all star veterans. Next year will tell us about talent because the youngsters will have to produce for us to maintain a high level.
Young players will have to step up next season for sure. And they will need a pitcher or two of very high level.
 

Ocalaman

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Young players will have to step up next season for sure. And they will need a pitcher or two of very high level.
They have the #4 recruiting class in the nation coming in next year, with 5 of the Top 100 high school players in the country. Two of them are members of the USA team. One is a pitcher, Rylee Trlicek, a lefty who already throws 70+ MPH, plus is a great hitter, rated one of the Top 5 players in the nation. The other stud is Julia Cottrill, a catcher who is supposed to be the best hitter coming out of high school. Another big time player/hitter is Mia Buffano. Can anyone take the place of Barnhill & Lorenz? Hard to do. But it's time for Roberts, Hoover, Matthews & Romanella to play up to their potential. Also, Lindaman is back and Cheyenne Lindsay will be fully recovered from knee surgery and could be a .300 leadoff hitter. There will definitely be lots of question marks, but Tim Walton has reloaded year after year and it's always fun to watch his teams play and progress.
 

Ocalaman

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#2 High School Recruit
Julia Cottrill
Stillwater (Okla.) C
Notes:
Commitment: Florida
CLUB TEAM: Georgia Impact

Kelley Lynch’s batterymate on both the 2019 Junior Women’s National Training Team and the PGF national champion Georgia Impact, Cottrill is one of the nation’s best hitters. The rifle-armed backstop saw few pitches to hit in her senior year at Stillwater last fall—walking 37 times while striking out just once— but still hit .547 with 10 home runs, 27 RBI and an OPS of 1.978.
#3 High School Recruit
Rylee Trlicek
Hallettsville (Texas) P
Notes:
Commitment: Florida
CLUB TEAM: OC Batbusters

Trlicek was recruited by Florida as a pitcher for good reason, but the lefty, who can hit 70 on the radar gun, is also a terror at the plate. Trlicek was the 2018 District 27-3A Offensive MVP for Hallettsville, batting .542 with 14 home runs and 54 RBI. A member of the 2019 Junior Women’s National Training Team, Trlicek was 20-3 with a 0.97 ERA and 226 strikeouts last year for the Brahmas.
 

Leroy Jenkins

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Thanks for the recruiting update. Sounds promising. Best hitter and one of the best pitchers and two way player
 

GatorInGeorgia

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I sure hope the Walton & players read this again tonight before the opening pitch. Motivation.
 

GatorInGeorgia

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How the hell do you give up TWO HR’s to their pitcher??! Un-freakin real! No excuses for that shyt. It falls squarely on Walton & Barnhill.
 

Ocalaman

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How the hell do you give up TWO HR’s to their pitcher??! Un-freakin real! No excuses for that shyt. It falls squarely on Walton & Barnhill.
Their pitcher happens to, also, be their best hitter. This isn;t like baseball where pitcher seldom, if ever hit. Many teams have pitchers who are, also, great hitters - like Lauren Haeger for us a few years back. Barnhill pitched great. The fault lies with the offense not being able to bunt when needed nor get key hits with runners in scoring position. We had 6 hits, 4 of them leading off an inning and in the 7th we had back-to-back singlesfrom Reynoso & Roberts to lead off. Get a sac. bunt down and Matthews' ground out to 2nd ties the game. But Caraway, Matthews & Voss grounded out to end the game. Lorenz led off the bottom of the 1st with a double and Lindaman and Adams had non-productive outs and Hoover couldn't deliver either. Voss led off an inning with a hit and Lorenz, Lindaman and Adams did nothing. Lorenz led off the 6th with a single and Lindaman, Adams and Hoover did nothing. This team overachieved just getting to the WCWS, but it's still disappointing to lose when we had several opportunities to score and failed in 4 different innings. Now we have to win twice Saturday and twice Sunday just to reach the championship series, starting with the loser of the Bama/Oklahoma game. With 1 reliable pitcher and a weak-hitting lineup that chances of that happening are almost zero. Still a good season in an off year for Gator softball.
 

GatorInGeorgia

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Their pitcher happens to, also, be their best hitter. This isn;t like baseball where pitcher seldom, if ever hit. Many teams have pitchers who are, also, great hitters - like Lauren Haeger for us a few years back. Barnhill pitched great. The fault lies with the offense not being able to bunt when needed nor get key hits with runners in scoring position. We had 6 hits, 4 of them leading off an inning and in the 7th we had back-to-back singles to lead off. Get a sac. bunt down and Matthews' ground out to 2nd ties the game. Lorenz led off the bottom of the 1st with a double and Lindaman and Adams had non-productive outs and Hoover couldn't deliver either. Voss led off any inning with a hit and Lorenz, Lindaman and Adams did nothing. Lorenz led off the 6th with a single and Lindaman, Adams and Hoover did nothing. This team overachieved just getting to the WCWS, but it's still disappointing to lose when we had several opportunities to score and failed in 4 different innings. Now we have to win twice Saturday and twice Sunday just to reach the championship series, starting with the loser of the Bama/Oklahoma game. With 1 reliable pitcher and a weak-hitting lineup that chances of that happening are almost zero. Still a good season in an off year for Gator softball.

You don’t pitch to her in that situation, PERIOD! I believe the rest of the OK State team went 0-20 in the batters box tonight. Pitch trash to her or just outright pitch around her.
 

Gator87

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Their pitcher happens to, also, be their best hitter. This isn;t like baseball where pitcher seldom, if ever hit. Many teams have pitchers who are, also, great hitters - like Lauren Haeger for us a few years back. Barnhill pitched great. The fault lies with the offense not being able to bunt when needed nor get key hits with runners in scoring position. We had 6 hits, 4 of them leading off an inning and in the 7th we had back-to-back singles to lead off. Get a sac. bunt down and Matthews' ground out to 2nd ties the game. Lorenz led off the bottom of the 1st with a double and Lindaman and Adams had non-productive outs and Hoover couldn't deliver either. Voss led off any inning with a hit and Lorenz, Lindaman and Adams did nothing. Lorenz led off the 6th with a single and Lindaman, Adams and Hoover did nothing. This team overachieved just getting to the WCWS, but it's still disappointing to lose when we had several opportunities to score and failed in 4 different innings. Now we have to win twice Saturday and twice Sunday just to reach the championship series, starting with the loser of the Bama/Oklahoma game. With 1 reliable pitcher and a weak-hitting lineup that chances of that happening are almost zero. Still a good season in an off year for Gator softball.
This, we didn’t hit all year against crappy pitchers we sure as hell aren’t going to start hitting now where everybody we face has at least one stud pitcher. Walton has to take a serious look at that guy masquerading as a hitting coach. The last inning was a microcosm of the entire season, we get the first two on and then we have a slapper who slaps the ball to the shortstop instead of laying down a bunt, then we pinch hit for a 190 hitter with another 190 hitter and finally end up with another hitter who hit the ball out of the infield about 4 times this year.
 

MJMGator

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You don’t pitch to her in that situation, PERIOD! I believe the rest of the OK State team went 0-20 in the batters box tonight. Pitch trash to her or just outright pitch around her.
Maybe you should call Walton.
 

Ocalaman

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Yeah, Tim Walton doesn't have a clue. 10 World Series in the last 12 years, the highest winning percentage among ALL D1 softball coaches. Our hitting has declined since Kenny Gajewski left to take the Oklahoma State job. Some of it is due to highly touted recruits who haven't lived up to their potential. Sometimes you just get beat by a better team or a better pitcher. Like I said before, just getting to the WCWS with this team is a tremendous COACHING accomplishment. Lay off the guy, ye of unrealistic expectations.
 

GatorInGeorgia

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Yeah, Tim Walton doesn't have a clue. 10 World Series in the last 12 years, the highest winning percentage among ALL D1 softball coaches. Our hitting has declined since Kenny Gajewski left to take the Oklahoma State job. Some of it is due to highly touted recruits who haven't lived up to their potential. Sometimes you just get beat by a better team or a better pitcher. Like I said before, just getting to the WCWS with this team is a tremendous COACHING accomplishment. Lay off the guy, ye of unrealistic expectations.

We didn’t get beat by a better team tonight and it wasn’t unrealistic to expect to win this game. If you think Okie State is better, you’re dreaming. It also isn’t unrealistic to expect Walton to pitch around the Okie State pitcher at the end of the game as the rest of their team couldn’t touch Barnhill. Tell me, why would you pitch to her on the second home run...after she already took Barnhill deep today and has a history of success against Kelly dating back to her time playing at Texas A&M? What did we possibly have to gain in doing so?
 

itsgr82bag8r

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How the hell do you give up TWO HR’s to their pitcher??! Un-freakin real! No excuses for that shyt. It falls squarely on Walton & Barnhill.
I would imagine every team we beat with Tim Tebow said the same sort of thing about a QB......
 

MADGator

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We didn’t get beat by a better team tonight and it wasn’t unrealistic to expect to win this game. If you think Okie State is better, you’re dreaming. It also isn’t unrealistic to expect Walton to pitch around the Okie State pitcher at the end of the game as the rest of their team couldn’t touch Barnhill. Tell me, why would you pitch to her on the second home run...after she already took Barnhill deep today and has a history of success against Kelly dating back to her time playing at Texas A&M? What did we possibly have to gain in doing so?

I hear you. After she tattooed that first one I was surprised they kept going at her the next two at bats. If UF was showing any sign of life at the plate I could see it, but... That game was there for the taking.
 

GatorInGeorgia

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I would imagine every team we beat with Tim Tebow said the same sort of thing about a QB......

Huh?? What does pitching around their home run hitter have to do with Tebow playing QB for us? I dunno, were opposing team defenses allowed a free pass to force Tebow to stand on the sidelines for several plays whenever they felt like it, like we could have done pitching around that girl last night?
 

cover2

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I'm not a big stat guy, but for as good as Barnhill is, I believe she has given up a lot of HRs. We're pretty anemic offensively, so it's hard to overcome those dingers. Thought we might've been able to overcome Show's first homer when our girl answered, but as @Ocalaman said, we couldn't move the base runners after the second and we go back to the hotel with the long face. We're a good but not great team that has to have lights out pitching to win. Barnhill was great except for two pitches. She should have known better on those two than the way she offered/executed. It'll be interesting to see how she responds.
 

Ocalaman

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I'm not a big stat guy, but for as good as Barnhill is, I believe she has given up a lot of HRs. We're pretty anemic offensively, so it's hard to overcome those dingers. Thought we might've been able to overcome Show's first homer when our girl answered, but as @Ocalaman said, we couldn't move the base runners after the second and we go back to the hotel with the long face. We're a good but not great team that has to have lights out pitching to win. Barnhill was great except for two pitches. She should have known better on those two than the way she offered/executed. It'll be interesting to see how she responds.
Barnhill gave up 21 home runs last year and after yesterday she's given up 20 this year. Her first 2 years she gave up 12 total I think. As great as she is, she's never developed an off speed pitch to get batters a little bit off balance. She has developed a drop ball that has been effective this year. But she still relies on her 3 level rise ball and every pitch is 64-72 mph. So teams and players that have faced her over and over for 4 years have made adjustments and so she is susceptible to the long ball. But she's thrown 286 innings this year, so 20 HR's is 1 every 14.5 innings (2+ games). Unfortunately some of them have come at crucial moments in big games.
 

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