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The Fastpitch Bulletin, Volume 19, Number 5 - March 4, 2019

03/04/2019, 8:45pm CST
By Bob Tomlinson

Just Another Day in a Cold Winter Wonderland -- I wonder when this stuff will be gone.

It’s a hard chopper in the hole between short and third!

Hello Again Fastpitch Softball Enthusiasts,

 I have been wondering about all this snow and softball season set to begin in a few days. The last time we had this much snow on the ground in Poynette was early February of 1979. Not in my first 40 years of being involved in high school girls' softball have we had to look at this much snow on March 4th. I am sure most people are trying to figure out ways to handle this stuff. If you know anything about Poynette then you know that last spring we cleaned snow off the field twice in one week of April and played games the rest of the week while most practiced indoors. Tomorrow our snow removal expert and I will be taking a look at the stuff and try to figure out what we can do to help things out inside our outfield and sideline fences. I'll keep you posted with pictures if action takes place. Sunday night I was told that one coach 2/3 of the way to the northern border of Wisconsin and the UP actually has removed the snow from that school's home field. All I can say is WOW! What if it thaws out a bit and then they get more snow. Seems like the outfield grass will be all torn up by the tires or tracks on those skid steers etc. I think I will call that coach and do a little interview for you to read.

I’ve been trying to put together a more useable database of head coach emails the past few days. It takes a long time to look up all those names and email addresses on the WIAA website’s School Directory. Once there I all too often learn that there is not even a listing for softball for some schools when in fact, in 100% of the cases the school does have softball as an offered sport. That forces me to look for help from other sources such as contacting that school’s AD and telling that person about the glitch on the WIAA site or emailing another coach in that conference. I have broken down the list I have been using by conference school but as of this writing I still have 42 more conferences to enter on my sheets. Once I have the conference completed I have been sending out a second message entitled A Second Welcome to More Wisconsin High School Softball Publicity asking for a pre-season survey to be returned so you can read about their team.

I you’d like to take a few minutes to help me out with your conference just contact me and I can tell you how to do it. It would probably be about 5 minutes of your time.

We have added some teams to the Pre-Season Watch lists so take a look at that. Keep In mind that we only ranked the top team in all five divisions and the rest of the lists are just in random order.

I took a look, thanks to Brian Phelps up in Gilman at the October issue of the WIAA Bulletin. On Pages 8-9 they listed the enrollments for every school (public and private) in the state. The top of Page 8 has the following text:

 2019-2020 Enrollments:
Listed below you will find the enrollments that will be used for the 2019-2020 school year for divisional placement. The numbers listed below are the September 21, 2019 enrollment counts that your school provided. If you find a discrepancy in the enrollment for your school, please let (name here) know by November 26, 2018. No changes will be made after this date. If your school has a charter school that is a WIAA member those enrollment numbers will be added to your enrollment. Eg., Hayward 521 plus HACIL 59 will give Hayward 580 for tournament placement. If you are a multi-high school district, the associate member number(s) will be added per the breakdown that was provided on the enrollment form.

On the weekend I had a first year head coach from a nearby school contact me and ask how the schools in the state are assigned to the five divisions in softball. I explained the method used (96 in Division 1 and the other four divisions closely divided with 80-81 schools in a division give or take a couple. Then I received that October Issue of the WIAA Bulletin and started looking for next year’s top 96 schools that would be Division 1. Since I knew that the coach who asked for the explanation is one of the smallest Division 1 schools in enrollment  this school year I counted just the schools on the list that 1000 or more students. I counted then recounted four more times. Each time I found 92 schools in that group. Then I looked for all high schools listed with 900 or more students in their school this year. I found the next four largest but I am not sure whether those associate member schools’ enrollments have been added to the high schools in the big list. If you have 950 or more kids this year I think you ought to ask your AD how that is figured.

I will take a look at the UW-Green Bay Roster and list those Wisconsin players in tomorrow night’s bulletin.

Here is a situation for you to ponder (especially new coaches and visitors to this site).

With one out and the bases loaded B4 hits a liner to short leftcenter field. It certainly appears that the ball will fall in for a safe hit. The coaches at first and third are screaming at their runners to go. The runners do go before the balls lands --- in the outstretched glove of the fleet-footed centerfielder. The great catch was out number 2. The second sacker yells at the centerfielder to throw the ball to her because the runner that had been at second at the time of the pitch is headed for third. The centerfielder makes a short toss the second sacker who is perched on top of second base. That’s the third out. As the defensive team starts heading for the bench area the coach hustles out onto the field and tells the second baseman to run over to third and touch the base. She does. Her coach then tells the home plate umpire that they are appealing the runner at third for not tagging up on the ball that was caught. The umpire tells the coach that it doesn’t matter because the runner from third touched the plate before the ball was thrown to second for the third out so the runs scores. A discussion suddenly takes place between the defensive coach, both umpires and quickly involves the coach of the team at bat. The defensive coach claimed that his team could still appeal that runner for not tagging up on the caught liner and that would negate the run.

What do you think?

Here is a list of former Wisconsin High School softball players on the University of Wisconsin roster this season. Tyra Turner, Freshman- Madison La Follette; Ally Mclesh, Freshman – Stevens Point Area High School, Haley Hestikin, Sophomore-Kaukauna; Kayla Konwent, Junior-Westosha Central; Stephanie Lombardo, Senior-New Berlin Eisenhower; Lauren Foster, Sophomore – Wausau then Valor Christian in Colorado; Jordan Little, Junior – Hudson; Savannah Rainey, Freshman – Verona; Heather Rudnicki,Junior - Verona

To read their biographies and see the rest of the Badger rosters and bios go this link: 

https://uwbadgers.com/roster.aspx?path=softball
I will take a look at the UW-Green Bay Roster and list those Wisconsin players in tomorrow night’s bulletin. Then follow that up with a look at our only D2 team in the state. I am not sure I have enough time to do all the D3 schools but I'd sure accept any information on the topic from those programs across the state. I'd even post their game summaries if they emailed them to me in written form or in a press release form (all typed up).

Have a great Tuesday!

Keep it Rising!

Bob

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