Just a bit outside!
Speaking about outside -- the weather there has been frightful to say the least. A deep blanket of snow covers most of the state and in many locales there is ice coating some of those layers. The forecast for the next week appears to a cold one so there won't be much melting taking place.
As of today the first day of coaching contact practice is March 11th. That is just 12 days away. Yes, 12 days! Coaches aught to have a great plan for indoor practices. Once coach at the clinic last weekend told us that his team practiced indoors no less than 26 days last season.
Meanwhile other coaches carried on a conversation we've heard for more than 4 decades -- playing the high school softball season from some time in August and finishing up by mid October. That conversation was heard taking place in the hallway at Chula Vista. That issue would open up a lot of discussion for sure.
The Hall of Fame banquet was a good one and congratulations to all the inductees. It was a pleasure and an honor to present my former Briggsville Braves' teammate and longtime friend and fellow high school coach Dale Gray of Wisconsin Dells.
I discovered a few more head coaching changes today and there will be more to announce as I get more information. Cassidy Lemminger is now the head softball coach at Johnson Creek High School. After 30 years of service to Racine Park’s softball program and 25 as the head coach Greg Nyboe has stepped down. He has been replaced by Valerie Freeman and his longtime assistant longtime assistant Dan Ayala is now the head coach at Racine Case replacing Danielloe Rivera. Nick Trebesch has taken over the reins of the Luther Prep (Watertown) softball program. If you know of other changes just drop me an email. It is really hard to keep up with all the changes. I do not, as of today, have an alphabetical order of the high schools within the WIAA. The organization no longer prints a hard copy of the School Directory. Going through my master list of head coaches shows that more than half of those coaches do not use school email as their primary contact. I try to keep the list in alphabetical order by school but it's tough to keep track of it all.
Several coaches have signed up to rank teams during the season. Coaches who rank teams for this website are welcome to and encouraged to rank teams in as many divisions of play as they are knowledgeable. Many conferences have schools from more than one division in them so it our method makes it possible to rank all the teams. Of course the rankers need to be in tune with what is taking place statewide. It worked for the first 17 years of ranking teams so it will work again.
Poynette is looking for more JV games. Each year it seems to get tougher to get enough games at that level. Trying to find 9th grade games is nearly impossible. The days of having 40-50 girls out for softball are in the distant past. If interested contact me or Poynette Athletic Director Jessica McCracken at jmccr@poynette.k12.wi.us and she will help you out. Poynette will be hosting a JV/JV2 Invite in May.
The Poynette Fastpitch Jamboree will be expanding to another venue this year. We have made an agreement with Sauk Prairie. They have two great fields side by side with lights so we will play games there on Friday and Saturday all day. It will cut down on some travel times for some teams that come from that direction.
That's about it for today.
