59bear said:
It's pretty obvious that the program has atrophied over the last several years. I wonder what the reasons are since Ninemire and Lohman were clearly part of the successful times. Is it that Ninemire is a spent force? The rise of other programs, notably UW, UO and ASU in the Pac and many in the midwest, south and southeast must be a factor as lots of top California players are heading out of state That said, I don't know that we've ever been a destination for stars other than the occasional Granger, Arioto, Henderson or Jackson. It does seem to me that the evolution of the college game in terms of offense, particularly power hitting, seems to have been a trend DN has missed or failed to exploit. I wonder how much the departure of John Reeves (did I get the names right) has been a factor. I thought D'Arcy might improve the pitching more than he did although neither Conley or Dung seem quite as effective this year as they were with him. Probably the ennui that seems to prevail is due to multiple issues but it is surely sad to see this program in the shape it is in.
I've been so busy with my own kids teams, I haven't been able to attend or even watch that many games the last few years but here's how I've viewed our hitting struggles. As many of you have noted, our offense has been stagnant for years and top recruits with great hitting resumes don't seem to take the next step after they arrive on campus.
However, one thing that stands out to me about our offense is that we seem to lack a real identity. Yes we definitely have lacked power hitting since Arioto graduated. At the same time, we also haven't had any elite slap hitters since her teammate Jamia Reed graduated in the same year. Some of you regulars can correct me if I'm wrong on that.
In an era where it's all the rage to take speedy right handed hitters and turn them around to become lefty slap hitters at the youth level, we haven't seemed to be able to recruit any of the elite slappers. In the one game I watched online this year, we had a mostly left handed lineup and I don't recall one slap attempt. I personally think the trend towards slappers is overused but it's clearly a huge part of today's fastpitch game. It makes me wonder if Ninemire simply doesn't value slap hitting as much as other coaches.
So getting back to the point of identity, we don't have a lineup to play small ball effectively but we also don't excel at putting the ball over the fence either.