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Post by granny on Feb 12, 2010 14:58:33 GMT -5
Good luck to Valpo softball as they opoen their season at UNI Dome. First game will be very tough versus UNI,picked 3rd in strong MVC.They have veteran team & many project them as a NCAA tourney team & they are always good playing at the Dome where they practice daily.
Valpo is young team, but should be exciting & get better each week.
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Post by granny on Feb 14, 2010 16:46:54 GMT -5
Softball wins 2 today, 1st game 2-1 and 2nd 9-1. Go 3-1 for tourney, had all players available last game.
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Post by vusportsfan49 on Mar 1, 2010 6:56:13 GMT -5
Softball 5-3. Five wins against teams with a combined record of 6-27. That coach sure can spin things! VU softball"s new motto should be doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Same old, same old. Appears consistent with most of VU sports.
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Post by valporun on Mar 1, 2010 13:33:27 GMT -5
Softball 5-3. Five wins against teams with a combined record of 6-27. That coach sure can spin things! VU softball"s new motto should be doing the same things over and over and expecting different results. Same old, same old. Appears consistent with most of VU sports. While it sucks that our 5 wins, so far, have come against teams with a combined 6 wins, I'm not feeling that this is more of the same. Looking at the teams we've played so far...these are all in tournaments where we have no control over who we play. I mean Coach Schneider can't call the coaches that do the scheduling of these tourneys and say, "I only want my girls to play teams with winning records, or we're not coming" because either we'll get a greedy reputation or no tournaments will take us after they see us playing Depaul, Texas, UCLA, Cal, and all of the good schools, and we get blown out horribly in 5 innings on "mercy rule". That would not only kill our team's confidence, but it would also send the message that we only want to play teams that are going to demoralize us, and not give us any kind of confidence that we can have a good-to-great team. Our first four games were at Northern Iowa, and played on an indoor artificial surface at the UNI Dome (the football stadium). We went 3-1 in this tourney, but UNI had control of who we played, and could only get the teams that wanted a couple of games this early in. Many teams across the nation started playing about the same time we did, and most of those are the money programs that can travel to Texas, Florida, or California for weekend tourneys. We had to take what we were able to get with the youth on our team again. At the Tennessee State tourney, over this weekend, besides a strong Indiana St. team, Tennessee State doesn't not have the softball reputation across the nation to get the kind of great teams that we might have a chance against, or might get blown out, like we did in game 2 with Indiana State, or the beating we put on Alabama A&M. Obviously, you're the type that only sees the record, and only wants to get on Coach Schneider's coaching about it. He has no control over what teams come to these tourneys. Yes, he has control over what contracts are signed for the tourneys they play in, but he wants some good softball for his teams to not only get ready for the conference play, but also some games to get his freshmen some game experiences too. Once conference play rolls around, most of the roster will only see "pinch" roles, either as pinch hitters or runners. These early tourneys, even with the bad teams are ways to get some of the young kids some really good playing time in the field, and some at-bats. See what they have, what they can do, how the girls react in real game play vs. practice scrimmages or diagrammed situations. Right now, this is the only way the girls learn what they can do in the college game. If you can't accept this, then you're obviously only looking at the record, and we only make the NCAA tourney in softball by winning the conference tournament, no at-large bids will come our way. |
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Post by vusportsfan49 on Mar 1, 2010 16:51:11 GMT -5
Valporun
I'm not looking at our record at all. I looked at the roster over the 8 games that were played so far and he started the same kids over and over as they continued to make mistake after mistake. That is exactly what happen last year. The preseason should be about trying different line ups, not winning games. He seems to be more concerned with his record and padding stats than playing teams like UNI and Indiana State which should better prepare the team for the conference tournament, the only shot at getting a bid. And however you want to spin it, they played very poorly against those teams based on the play by play. You can't hide weaknesses against those teams and they ate VU up. UIC, Cleveland State, Loyola and Wright State get the crap beat up preseason and finish in the top 3 to 4 in conference. So you are wrong, I could care less about the record.
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Post by vusupporter on Mar 1, 2010 17:13:52 GMT -5
Valporun I'm not looking at our record at all. I looked at the roster over the 8 games that were played so far and he started the same kids over and over as they continued to make mistake after mistake. That is exactly what happen last year. The preseason should be about trying different line ups, not winning games. He seems to be more concerned with his record and padding stats than playing teams like UNI and Indiana State which should better prepare the team for the conference tournament, the only shot at getting a bid. And however you want to spin it, they played very poorly against those teams based on the play by play. You can't hide weaknesses against those teams and they ate VU up. UIC, Cleveland State, Loyola and Wright State get the crap beat up preseason and finish in the top 3 to 4 in conference. So you are wrong, I could care less about the record. Team has 19 players. 17 have started at least one game (only two who haven't are two relief pitchers). Only two have started every game. Two others have started seven games. 11 of the 15 position players have started at least five games. |
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Post by vusportsfan49 on Mar 1, 2010 18:42:08 GMT -5
Recalculate that at the end of the season and you will see the trend. I followed this team on gametracker the last three years and that has been the mode.
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Post by valporun on Mar 1, 2010 19:43:21 GMT -5
As I said in my "diatribe" earlier today, some of the players that you track thru gametracker only come in as pinch runners or pinch hitters later in the season. Some of this is to help those younger players get the idea of what their value is to the team, not just that they have a good bat, or they can play the field decently. Too many softball players get the thought that they are great on their summer teams or with their high schools, but those are really limited situations based on competition levels or quality of the school teams in the player's conference. Now at the college level, they have real roles they play in helping the team win, not just to grab a bat and run up the score, now it's grab a bat and learn the concept of "small ball", and manufacture runs and get on base to move runners around. Not just to hit for the fences or abuse that weak left fielder in the fenceless outfield, who doesn't have the arm to get the ball back to the infield.
Softball is a rather strategic game, with lots of roles being played. Some of these players will never be playing full games in this system, and that is something they'll see, and accept, or they'll leave Valpo for a place they can play, or they'll quit the game. It happens. If he pads his record doing this, at least we have a winning team, unlike the coach that was at Valpo before him.
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Post by granny on Mar 1, 2010 21:15:17 GMT -5
Not sure of all the records & stats mentioned, but I think Loyala, Wright State,UIC,etc.play in tournaments in places like Ca. one weekend,Fl or texas another,maybe AZ. or Ga.another.I know 2-3 of these teams take flights to these w/e tourneys....could coach Schneider's budget maybe be a factor?
I do know that 2 players missed first 3 games serving a penalty from Fall, Boldt has Mono, Marinec had back injury & I think is still not 100%,Warner has knee problems, & the young Bridwell girl missed 2 1/2 games with bad flu over w/e.
Sometimes with a young team you have to take baby steps.
Maybe all will be happy, I was told next year they have already committed to Stetson Tourney & also UF tourney.
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Post by vusportsfan49 on Mar 1, 2010 21:26:40 GMT -5
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Post by 78crusader on Mar 1, 2010 21:42:56 GMT -5
Gee, we're 5-3. Can't we just enjoy the record and look forward to the rest of what promises to be a good year? Paul
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Post by 746 on Mar 1, 2010 22:14:58 GMT -5
After reviewing the schedule I think some games will be definitely winnable and some will be tough fought.
Do you think going out getting pounded by PAC 10 schools to start your season will make you better? does finishing 3rd or 4th in the Horizon league really excite you sports fan49?
Coach Schneider has taken a dysfunctional program and did a total 180 in just a few years. I don't think anybody with the same resources could do a better job than what he's done. He almost won the Horizon in 08 and I believe this year he will definitely be a contender once again with a very young team. Any coach interested in padding stats and wins would definitely play a great player.
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Post by oldvufan10 on Mar 2, 2010 8:43:42 GMT -5
Wow. Granny seems to have all the inside information. Info that isn't public knowledge. Illness, who is on the DL, who is serving sanctions. She appears to be close to the coach or maybe she is the coach!!
For the record, this is mid-major non basketball or football and sometimes players play over other players for reasons not related to performance. It happens more than you think so lets cut the naivety. It is no different than the work world.
The comments about what the coach has done with the program are off base. Any extra effort into the program was going to make it better. It was severely neglected. Even a neglected plant will start to recover with the slightest improvement of care. Since this is VU's first full time coach it had to get better, but that doesn't mean the guy is a great or even good coach. If he was, he wouldn't still be at Valpo in his 7th year of coaching.
I just read a blog entry when the coach stated that "they tell the kids that we all will be judged by the end result". True perhaps, but in the end everyone will be judged on how we treat the people we touch everyday.
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Post by ValpoDad on Mar 2, 2010 9:00:50 GMT -5
The comments about what the coach has done with the program are off base. Any extra effort into the program was going to make it better. It was severely neglected. Even a neglected plant will start to recover with the slightest improvement of care. Since this is VU's first full time coach it had to get better, but that doesn't mean the guy is a great or even good coach. If he was, he wouldn't still be at Valpo in his 7th year of coaching. I just read a blog entry when the coach stated that "they tell the kids that we all will be judged by the end result". True perhaps, but in the end everyone will be judged on how we treat the people we touch everyday. Damn, did I somehow log into someone else's name and write this without knowing it? You are obviously a parent of a former/current player....and dead on in your comments. |
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Post by ValpoDad on Mar 2, 2010 9:23:37 GMT -5
Wow. Granny seems to have all the inside information. Info that isn't public knowledge. Illness, who is on the DL, who is serving sanctions. She appears to be close to the coach or maybe she is the coach!! Granny didn't share anything that wouldn't have been known by the parents or others that follow the team closely. One of the coaches? Nah, don't think so. The use of punctuation marks and overall writing style is very similar to old screen names of this forum and other softball forums I frequent. Close to the coach? Pretty good guess. |
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