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FPB - Volume 12, Number 31 -- 5/27/2012

05/27/2012, 10:45pm CDT
By Bob Tomlinson

Hold the wagon while I jump off!

Holy Cow! There's been some incredible chatter after the most recent Fastpitch Softball News Bulletin. It seems to be centering on or around the  Senior Player Watch Lists that were posted early in the season and actually throughout most of the season.

Here is how the watch list was accumulated.

Taco Bell decided to sponsor a watch list for more WSN sports and softball was one of them. I was asked to compile a list as best I could using the information from the awards section from the conference pages and any other informational places I could find people to include on the lists. I looked at the WFSCA site as well and tried to glean all the senior players who were listed on those lists from 1st Team All State all the way down through Honorable Mention All State. 

I have no idea what player I may have missed but I must have missed a player in my gleaning process. However, I covered all the bases with the watch lists by announcing that we were going to be posting the lists and allowed anyone really, absolutley anyone who reads the Bulletins to nominate any senior player they thought was deserving to be "watched." 

I received several dozen names through that process and added every one of them in and even added more in after the original Senior Watch Lists were published. I had the ability to do so. So anybody could have e-mailed me with any senior they felt was or is one of the state's top seniors in those categories that were given to me to list. Anyone could have nominated any senior player they wanted to. I added every one of them that was e-mailed to me. It was that simple.

I very well could have missed a player. If I only missed one I'd consider that a pretty good percentage and by allowing others to nominate senior players through me I opened all the channels that would have been needed. 

I'm not picking the Senior Player Award winners. I won't do that as long as I am still coaching a team. It would be a conflict of interest. I do provide information on players statewide to other such awards people but I don't involve myself in the actual selecting of those awards winners. 

An easy to way to get answers to most issues etc. that are centered around information about fastpitch coverage on wissports.net softball is to simply send me an e-mail. Any coach, scorekeeper, umpire (I doubt if there are many of those people who read anything on wissports.net softball though), groundskeeper, player or heck even a player's father, mother, brother, sister, aunt, uncle, grandparent, friend or the player herself could have nominated any senior softball player in the state for that award. I would have added that name in a heartbeat.

That's the way it has all gone down. 

I will add this note to the above scenario though. It's really tough to watch any player's season successes without some information to watch. Baseball and softball are really driven by statistics and the strength of schedule played in accumulating those statistics. Show us the stats!

On Tuesday all four divisions will be playing games. There are some interesting matchups in the regional semi-finals and will be some huge match-ups and some not so huge matchups in the regional finals on Thursday.

As I look at those Division 1 sectionals that are seeded #1 through #16 I see some long road trips but remember that those Division 1 games are regional semi-final games. The Division 1 teams with byes on Tuesday actually have byes into what are in essence the regional final level. They need only win three games to get a state tournament berth.

Here are some lengthy trips on Tuesday -- Middleton must travel to Holmen, Madison East travels to LaCrosse Logan and Madison West travels to LaCrosse Central and Tomah to Olbrich Park in Madison is no hop/skip/jump either. Superior travels to Menomonie but Superior is accustomed to those kinds of trips. I'd guess Amy in Superior would agree. It looks to me that Division 1, Sectional 3 could be termed the Long Distance Sectional. 

Have you ever taken a close look at how the sectionals are composed. For instance, take a look at the southwestern part of the state and you will find not one Division 1 school there. Get out a map of Wisconsin. Open it up on the table. Grab a straight edge and a marker. Place the point of your marker on the south edge of LaCrosse and draw a straight line from LaCrosse to the Tomah. Move your straight edge so Tomah and Baraboo are lined up and draw a line from Tomah to Baraboo. Now move your straight edge so Baraboo and Verona are in a straight line and draw that line with your marker. Middleton will be just to the east of your marker line. Now move the straight edge so Verona and the west edge of Beloit are in line with one another and draw that line with your marker. You will see that Oregon is about the width of your marker line to the east of your marker line. Now use your marker and highlight the state line between Beloit and Dubuque, Iowa. Then use the marker and highlight the Wisconsin side of the Mississippi River all the way up to where it touches your original marker spot on the south edge of LaCrosse. I challenge you to find any Division 1 schools in that "marker enclosed area." That'a a lot of square miles without a Division 1 school in it. Thus -- lots of travel.

Have a great day!
Keep it Rising!
Bob

Tag(s): Bulletins