I went to Santa Barbara, my favorite place to vacation in California and only a 90 minute drive, last weekend for the holiday weekend. The weather was perfect: highs in the upper 70s, sunny, light wind.
I had no idea Pitt would be playing in a softball tournament there. Found out just before we went. I had made reservations about 3 months ago, which is pretty much mandatory for Santa Barbara on any summer or holiday weekend. The school
Isn't located in the town, but in Isla Vista, a few miles to the west. So, I decided to drive there on Saturday to see the games, which was not thrilling for my companion. I figured we could get a tan but I expected Pitt to get killed since they would be playing 2 Cali teams, UCSB and St Mary's, which is just east of San Francisco. I also assumed I would be the only Pitt fan there.
Wrong on both counts. It turns out that about half of the Pitt team is from California, and their families and friends were out in force for the tourney. There probably were 75-100 Pitt fans there. And Pitt went undefeated, beating both Cali teams twice.
A few observations on the games and the team:
They were 10-0 after the tourney but don't start thinking NCAA tourney. The best pitcher, Samantha King, is good but not an NCAA caliber starter. The other starter is a freshman who was not very good. I don't know if pitchers improve a lot with experience, but they need to recruit a couple of real good pitchers.
This team can hit. At least against the pitchers they faced there. They have a freshman 2B who I think hit 3 HRs. The ball jumped off her bat. I think they hit 6 or 7 HRs in the two games we watched. They also are fast and often took an extra base. And they fielded very well, especially the SS and the CF who ran down some balls that looked like they would be hits.
I think UCSB thought it would be an easy win and started their #3 starter, who got clobbered. But the next day (We weren't there. You can only ask a woman to spend so much time watching softball) according to the Santa Barbara paper they started their ace and still lost.
I am pretty sure the players they are getting out of California are not players Arizona and UCLA and the other powers are recruiting. But softball here is like HS FB in Florida or California or Texas -- but more so. The #100 player here likely will be better than anyone but a wunderkind from the East. The coach, along with Suzie McConnell-Serio, has proven how quickly you can turn around a bad program with good and, most important, hard recruiting. The parents of a player from San Diego told me their daughter initially had no interest in Pitt, but they kept recruiting her much harder than any other school, alleviated her concerns about the effect of the weather on softball, and, most importantly to them, stressed the academic environment and Pitt's high national standing. Looking quickly at the write ups of the players on the University site, almost all of the California players are National Merit scholars. The player whose parents I talked to said their daughter had been considering Utah and Colorado but when she checked out Pitt's academics and then took an official visit, she eliminated them and her decision came down to Pitt or a strong academic school in Cali which doesn't play in a prestige conference. They said she wanted to see if she was good enough to play in a conference like the ACC.
Aprile and McConnell-Serio have little local talent to recruit but have turned their programs around. Jason Peters is in the best geographic area in the country to recruit wrestling talent and his recruiting is an unmitigated disaster the last two years.
I had no idea Pitt would be playing in a softball tournament there. Found out just before we went. I had made reservations about 3 months ago, which is pretty much mandatory for Santa Barbara on any summer or holiday weekend. The school
Isn't located in the town, but in Isla Vista, a few miles to the west. So, I decided to drive there on Saturday to see the games, which was not thrilling for my companion. I figured we could get a tan but I expected Pitt to get killed since they would be playing 2 Cali teams, UCSB and St Mary's, which is just east of San Francisco. I also assumed I would be the only Pitt fan there.
Wrong on both counts. It turns out that about half of the Pitt team is from California, and their families and friends were out in force for the tourney. There probably were 75-100 Pitt fans there. And Pitt went undefeated, beating both Cali teams twice.
A few observations on the games and the team:
They were 10-0 after the tourney but don't start thinking NCAA tourney. The best pitcher, Samantha King, is good but not an NCAA caliber starter. The other starter is a freshman who was not very good. I don't know if pitchers improve a lot with experience, but they need to recruit a couple of real good pitchers.
This team can hit. At least against the pitchers they faced there. They have a freshman 2B who I think hit 3 HRs. The ball jumped off her bat. I think they hit 6 or 7 HRs in the two games we watched. They also are fast and often took an extra base. And they fielded very well, especially the SS and the CF who ran down some balls that looked like they would be hits.
I think UCSB thought it would be an easy win and started their #3 starter, who got clobbered. But the next day (We weren't there. You can only ask a woman to spend so much time watching softball) according to the Santa Barbara paper they started their ace and still lost.
I am pretty sure the players they are getting out of California are not players Arizona and UCLA and the other powers are recruiting. But softball here is like HS FB in Florida or California or Texas -- but more so. The #100 player here likely will be better than anyone but a wunderkind from the East. The coach, along with Suzie McConnell-Serio, has proven how quickly you can turn around a bad program with good and, most important, hard recruiting. The parents of a player from San Diego told me their daughter initially had no interest in Pitt, but they kept recruiting her much harder than any other school, alleviated her concerns about the effect of the weather on softball, and, most importantly to them, stressed the academic environment and Pitt's high national standing. Looking quickly at the write ups of the players on the University site, almost all of the California players are National Merit scholars. The player whose parents I talked to said their daughter had been considering Utah and Colorado but when she checked out Pitt's academics and then took an official visit, she eliminated them and her decision came down to Pitt or a strong academic school in Cali which doesn't play in a prestige conference. They said she wanted to see if she was good enough to play in a conference like the ACC.
Aprile and McConnell-Serio have little local talent to recruit but have turned their programs around. Jason Peters is in the best geographic area in the country to recruit wrestling talent and his recruiting is an unmitigated disaster the last two years.
