The DeLong & Short Of It: Mean Green Softball Week 4

FirefightnRick · February 25, 2020

Thought I’d start an open subject & discussion thread just for 🥎 independent of the game threads..

So here we are at 12-2 following a 4 game sweep of A&Mcc and Southern.....as we should have. But it still burns me that we’re not 13-2 and ranked after letting the texas game slip away last week.

I know we’ve moved on from that game but you have to give that and the ULL games greater consideration because those are two teams who are at the level we greatly inspire to be at and in my opinion are very close to becoming.

Did you know that prior to our game with the horns they were averaging 10 runs a game?

Going into their game against us they were 10-0 and just slaughtering opposing pitching with wins over Ol’ Miss and an 11 run win over #12 Tennessee and had scored 100 runs....until they faced North Texas where they were fortunate to get two unearned runs to win it. For Trautwein to hold that group to 1 run for 7 innings was a phenomenal effort.

And their defense is just as good. The two girls they pitched against us, Elish and O’leary are two of the top pitchers in the nation.

Elish, an All American at Oregon was 37-2 with a 1.18 ERA before transferring to Austin. She has been and is currently on the 2018, 2019 & 2020 Top 50 Preseason Watch List for USA Softball National Collegiate Player of the Year award and that’s just the start of a long long laundry list of her recognitions.

O’leary at six foot two is right behind Elish in accolades, though just a sophomore, she was the Big 12 freshman pitcher of the year last year and is the reigning 2019 national ERA champion with a 0.65 ERA

Enough cannot be said for how the Mean Green battled the horns and those two pitchers because it shows what we’re capable of. What separates us and a team on texas’ level besides millions in funding is the micro plays that you see in softball.

The main thing that stood out to me was our inability to successfully lay down a bunt to move a runner over at the most critical times in the game.

When your playing such a tight, small ball game that is the game of softball those type of tiny things have to be automatic to play top 25 ball. Every time texas laid a bunt down they got the runner over. We didn’t when we had to have it. That cannot happen. It just can’t to win games against a top program.. The great thing is that’s correctable and I know we’ll get better at it.

Moving on to this week...

As Lifer mentioned already UTA is up next and we play them tomorrow at The Lace. They have a couple of wins over an 11-5 A&M Aggie team. UTA has since cooled off a bit, is 7-7 and is currently on a 3 game losing streak dropping two games to a struggling Kansas and one game to UTSA.

UTA keeps a large pitching staff usually but looks to be only using 4 so far. Their top two pitchers have a combined ERA of 2.56. Still they are a very solid team like they always are. They have combined for 11 home runs already and have turned 5 double plays. As usual I suspect we’ll have our hands full tomorrow night.

Speaking of UTSA,..they appear to be our current nearest in-conference challenge so far. Not so much because they are 11-5 with wins over Kansas and UTA but because last years CUSA co-champion La Tech is sitting at 3-11 with losses to Montana, Central Arkansas, Austin Peay, Evensville and Houston Baptist. They have also lost to Texas Tech, LSU, Houston and Syracuse. Still, I had expected when I peeked at their schedule to see them no worse than .500. So that’s something to keep an eye on.

Rick

Edited February 25, 2020 by FirefightnRick

NorthTexasSportsNetwork · February 25, 2020

13 hours ago, FirefightnRick said:

Thought I’d start an open subject & discussion thread just for 🥎 independent of the game threads..

So here we are at 12-2 following a 4 game sweep of A&Mcc and Southern.....as we should have. But it still burns me that we’re not 13-2 and ranked after letting the texas game slip away last week.

I know we’ve moved on from that game but you have to give that and the ULL games greater consideration because those are two teams who are at the level we greatly inspire to be at and in my opinion are very close to becoming.

Did you know that prior to our game with the horns they were averaging 10 runs a game?

Going into their game against us they were 10-0 and just slaughtering opposing pitching with wins over Ol’ Miss and an 11 run win over #12 Tennessee and had scored 100 runs....until they faced North Texas where they were fortunate to get two unearned runs to win it. For Trautwein to hold that group to 1 run for 7 innings was a phenomenal effort.

And their defense is just as good. The two girls they pitched against us, Elish and O’leary are two of the top pitchers in the nation.

Elish, an All American at Oregon was 37-2 with a 1.18 ERA before transferring to Austin. She has been and is currently on the 2018, 2019 & 2020 Top 50 Preseason Watch List for USA Softball National Collegiate Player of the Year award and that’s just the start of a long long laundry list of her recognitions.

O’leary at six foot two is right behind Elish in accolades, though just a sophomore, she was the Big 12 freshman pitcher of the year last year and is the reigning 2019 national ERA champion with a 0.65 ERA

Enough cannot be said for how the Mean Green battled the horns and those two pitchers because it shows what we’re capable of. What separates us and a team on texas’ level besides millions in funding is the micro plays that you see in softball.

The main thing that stood out to me was our inability to successfully lay down a bunt to move a runner over at the most critical times in the game.

When your playing such a tight, small ball game that is the game of softball those type of tiny things have to be automatic to play top 25 ball. Every time texas laid a bunt down they got the runner over. We didn’t when we had to have it. That cannot happen. It just can’t to win games against a top program.. The great thing is that’s correctable and I know we’ll get better at it.

Moving on to this week...

As Lifer mentioned already UTA is up next and we play them tomorrow at The Lace. They have a couple of wins over an 11-5 A&M Aggie team. UTA has since cooled off a bit, is 7-7 and is currently on a 3 game losing streak dropping two games to a struggling Kansas and one game to UTSA.

UTA keeps a large pitching staff usually but looks to be only using 4 so far. Their top two pitchers have a combined ERA of 2.56. Still they are a very solid team like they always are. They have combined for 11 home runs already and have turned 5 double plays. As usual I suspect we’ll have our hands full tomorrow night.

Speaking of UTSA,..they appear to be our current nearest in-conference challenge so far. Not so much because they are 11-5 with wins over Kansas and UTA but because last years CUSA co-champion La Tech is sitting at 3-11 with losses to Montana, Central Arkansas, Austin Peay, Evensville and Houston Baptist. They have also lost to Texas Tech, LSU, Houston and Syracuse. Still, I had expected when I peeked at their schedule to see them no worse than .500. So that’s something to keep an eye on.

Rick

Now receiving 34 votes in the T25 coaches poll.

FirefightnRick · February 25, 2020

25 minutes ago, NorthTexasSportsNetwork said:

Now receiving 34 votes in the T25 coaches poll.

I just saw this as well.

Rick

UNTLifer · February 25, 2020

Underrated.

Mean Green 93-98 · February 25, 2020

4 minutes ago, UNTLifer said:

Underrated.

Clap-clap-clapclapclap

GrandGreen · February 26, 2020

Current softball rankings has Texas 3 and ULALA 10

NT very underappreciated in 29th place.

Side Show Joe · February 26, 2020

I love softball. I'll be at the OU game Saturday. Here is a nice article from d1softball.com. It has some good details about how Baker is investing in softball this season.

https://d1softball.com/sweet-motivation-helps-fuel-unt-mean-green/

FirefightnRick · February 26, 2020

2 hours ago, Side Show Joe said:

I love softball. I'll be at the OU game Saturday. Here is a nice article from d1softball.com. It has some good details about how Baker is investing in softball this season.

https://d1softball.com/sweet-motivation-helps-fuel-unt-mean-green/

Thank you. Solid write up and insight. I was wondering why the ground north of the visitors dugout was for. The Lace is getting some major upgrades.

And I love reading that Coach DeLong also thinks that due to our close proximity to such a wealth of talent North Texas could become a powerhouse similar to ULL. Seems like someone around here has been saying the same thing for nearly 20 years now 🤔.

Rick

gangrene · February 26, 2020

DeLong has done a great job with the team in a very short time. He's also really engaged the DFW softball community by the numerous camps UNT has hosted. I don't recall seeing any camps when Kee was coach.

I help coach a 14U select team and the only negative I have is some feedback I heard from my players that attended a UNT camp. I was told coaches were laughing at some of the players' mistakes and one camper was actually in tears after a day of camp because she felt like the coaches didn't like her. I hope that was just a misunderstanding and/or an oversensitive girl, but that's not good to hear from potential future recruits that are paying $150+ for a UNT softball camp. I felt partially responsible because I encouraged the girls to attend the camp.

UNTLifer · February 26, 2020

2 hours ago, gangrene said:

DeLong has done a great job with the team in a very short time. He's also really engaged the DFW softball community by the numerous camps UNT has hosted. I don't recall seeing any camps when Kee was coach.

I help coach a 14U select team and the only negative I have is some feedback I heard from my players that attended a UNT camp. I was told coaches were laughing at some of the players' mistakes and one camper was actually in tears after a day of camp because she felt like the coaches didn't like her. I hope that was just a misunderstanding and/or an oversensitive girl, but that's not good to hear from potential future recruits that are paying $150+ for a UNT softball camp. I felt partially responsible because I encouraged the girls to attend the camp.

I truly hope this is a misunderstanding, but did you pass along these concerns to DeLong? I bet he would welcome the feedback.

gangrene · February 27, 2020

21 hours ago, UNTLifer said:

I truly hope this is a misunderstanding, but did you pass along these concerns to DeLong? I bet he would welcome the feedback.

I did send an email but received no reply.