Well tonight is the first game of the last regular season series for the Pride and the Racers. Bandits/Diamonds started their series last night with a Diamonds win. It is so unreal to me that the season is almost over. This summer and this season flew by! It makes me sad that it's almost over! It's been a great season for the Pride both on and off the field. I hope they can finish it up with a championship!
I missed last weekends series against the Diamonds because I was on vacation. But they swept them! Cat Osterman, Sarah Pauly, and Danielle Lawrie all turned in great pitching performances! Brittany Mack struggled a little and ended up being taken out and Cat finished the game. Francesca Enea had a big weekend with her bat! Really though the offense was very solid all weekend. The only pitcher the Diamonds have that gives the Pride any problems is Katie Burkhart and they still managed to beat her! The Pride played the Racers the weekend before last and took 3 of 4 games. Again Cat, Sarah, and Danielle turned in great performances. Brittany had a rough start and the defense behind her was not very good. Jenn Salling actually got the start at SS that game(she also got a start last weekend and did an excellent job both in the field and with her bat) and she looked kind of rusty but her bat was hot! She went 2 for 3 in the game and looked really good. She did make some great defensive plays that game and it was fantastic to see her out there! But the Pride fell just a little short in that game with the offense struggling to figure out Hillary Bach. Overall though it's been a very strong last few weeks for the Pride. I feel really good about this team and their chances of winning it all! Obviously this the NPF and the best of the best so you never know whats going to happen but I feel good about this team.
You can never count the Bandits out. They have some incredible hitters in their lineup who can get hot at any time and really punish you! They also have Monica Abbott! Abbott was very dominate the first half of the season but has been a little less dominate the second half. But I know with everything on the line she'll be in the circle every game and she is going to give everything she has. Bandits have very little pitching behind her. They have a large pitching staff but no clear cut number 2. Nemitz is the closest thing but she can be inconsistent at times. The others are mostly rookies who have struggled to find their feet this season. I don't believe any of them except for maybe an inning or two here or there for Nemitz will be a factor next week in the championship series. They rested Abbott alot this season and she should be fairly fresh and ready to go. I look for the Bandits to again be the Pride's top competition.
The Diamonds have looked stellar at times and then have looked like a hot mess at times. Their pitching is led by Katie Burkhart and they too don't really have a strong number 2 behind her. This is a very young team, a team that has struggled to hold on to players for more than season. But they've improved so much since last season! It's been interesting to watch and should be interesting to see what they do in the championship series. Their offense is pretty good and they will get back the incredible outfield play, big consistent bat, strong leadership of Caitlin Lever for the championship series(Caitlin took a new job at UNLV and has been getting settled in there the last couple of weeks). That will be big for the Diamonds I think.
The Racers are frankly a mess right now. In seasons past their ace has been Kristina Thorson. She has always been a very strong pitcher and been huge for the Racers as not only a great pitcher but leader. Sadly a series of injuries have kept her largely off the field the 2nd half of the season. I don't believe she was 100% at any point in the season but she has battled her heart out. What she has pitched, she has been pretty ineffective. I felt really bad for her the weekend before last because she was in obvious discomfort. She has struggled with a hip injury and now seems to be having an issue with her pitching arm. The pitching behind her is pretty weak. Hillary Bach has had a couple of good games but she has also had a couple of nasty games as well. She is a rookie still trying to get her feet under her. Lisa Norris is a veteran but has not had a very good season either. During the middle of the season they signed UGA grad Erin Arevalo who has frankly struggled with the transition to pro ball. She has not so far been the help they were looking for. This team is struggling to find a number 1 pitcher let alone a number 2. The Racers offense is pretty good but their lack of pitching is really going to hurt them I'm afraid.
The Pride have a very deep pitching rotation with 3 of the best pitchers in the world in Cat Osterman, Sarah Pauly, and Danielle Lawrie. They are all 3 veterans who have played all over the place including Japan. Cat is certainly the ace but Sarah and Danielle are both extremely good pitchers themselves who have racked in the innings, wins, and strikeouts all season. Pride without a doubt have the best pitching staff in the league. I don't just say that as a totally biased fan but the stats back that up. The offense for Pride has been strong. Maybe not as strong as last season but strong and consistent. Kristyn Sandberg has had a stellar rookie season and if she isn't rookie of the year there is something very wrong! Kelly Kretchman on the other end of the spectrum has had a very strong season as well! This team works well together and they get the job done! Their chemistry is incredible! I look forward to watching them next week in the championship series and I hope and pray they come of it with the championship!
Graham Hays wrote a very good article on Cat Osterman and Megan Willis(I'll post the link at the bottom for those who haven't read it). There wasn't much in there that I didn't already know but it was a still a great read and a great reminder that softball is supposed to be fun and the best part is the bonds and friendships you form. But this article and an article I read about the Pride/Diamonds series got me thinking about something. In the article I read about the series between the Pride and the Diamonds it said the Pride has 7 Olympians and it made my blood boil! Why you may ask? Because the Pride has 9 Olympians! I've noticed people doing this alot and it bugs me! They don't say that the Pride has 7 American Olympians or 7 Olympic medalist. They say the Pride has 7 Olympians. So in case you didn't see my Facebook post here goes my rant again. The Pride has 9 Olympians. Danielle Lawrie and Jenn Salling played for Canada in 08 in Beijing in the Olympics! They weren't just there, they were a huge part of the Canadian team! Eerily similar to Worlds this summer they fell just short of being on the podium placing 4th after losing to the Aussies(The order the first 4 teams finished in Beijing in the Olympics in 08 and the order they finished in Canada in Worlds this summer was identical!). But regardless they were there. They both red shirted and spent the year training and getting ready for the Olympics just like the Americans did. They played their hearts out just like the Americans did. They felt the sting of defeat and the heartbreak of coming up just short just like the Americans did. They deal with the heartbreak of not being able to to try again and the heartbreak of knowing their last Olympic memories will likely forever be defeat just like the Americans. We as Americans get very bad tunnel vision. We only see the American athletes, we only hear their stories and we only feel the need to acknowledge the Americans as Olympians. Like it or not(and I know that many will disagree with me in this and that's fine) part of the reason softball was on outside looking in at the Olympics in London was because of this. I'll go ahead and tell you I am about to be blunt and honest and some of you are not going appreciate it but it needs to be said. I've read article after article after article after article with interviews with Jessica Mendoza, Cat Osterman, and few other American softball players. I've read the belly aching over what they've lost without having the Olympics and don't get me wrong they have lost alot and I know it hurts very much for them and I am in no way trying to say that isn't the case. I think part of the reason that softball was kicked out of the Olympics was not just that the Americans were so dominate but that the sport revolves too much around the Americans and that isn't what the Olympics is about. Instead of 15,000 articles about what Jessica Mendoza, Cat Osterman, Natasha Watley, Caitlin Lowe, and so on lost when softball was taken out of the Olympics I'd like to see more stories about these other countries and the women on their teams and what they lost. I'd love to hear what Danielle Lawrie and Jenn Salling felt, thought,and their memories of their time on the Olympic stage. I'd like to hear from Stacy Porter and what it felt like to represent Australia in the Olympics. I'd love to hear about Yukiko Ueno's experience and what it felt like to beat the Americans and win gold! There are so many stories out there that aren't being told! The American's really are very lucky. They have companies who are willing to sponsor them. They have the NPF to play in. They have media who want to hear what they have to say. Don't get me wrong Danielle Lawrie, Jenn Salling, and Caitlin Lever have been blessed with some of that as well. But I've never seen an interview with any of the 3 of them where their Olympic experience is discussed. They go largely unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. But they are more lucky than other countries where the loss of the Olympics has really hurt the sport and their ability to play. My opinion if we really want to get this sport back in the Olympics it's time to shut the spot light off the Americans for awhile and tell the stories of these other women. It's time that people start promoting this sport in other countries and working to grow the sport in these other countries. I will honestly be very very surprised if softball is put back in 2020 at this point. We've wasted so much time belly aching about what the Americans lost and so little time doing anything about it! Somewhere along the way this became about what the Americans have lost and not about what softball has lost. That isn't right and that won't get the sport back in the Olympics. The IOC knows that softball is big here in America. They know that the vast majority of the big name players come out of America. They don't need to be told that or see that. They need to see other countries working to grow softball and international softball becoming more about all the countries involved and not just the USA. If international softball is going to survive, we've got to see more international softball discussed and less American softball. I seriously thought about tweeting Graham Hays and asking him to interview Danielle Lawrie and Jenn Salling about their relationship and more importantly their Olympic experience and still might(although I'm having trouble doing so in 140 characters lol!). I think it's time we heard their stories and see things through the eyes of a non-American softball players eyes. So if you think this is a good idea maybe you can tweet him or get in contact with him somehow and let him know it too! He always does such amazing job and is such a gifted writer!
Here is the article about Cat Osterman and Megan Willis!
http://espn.go.com/espnw/more-sports/8269131/espnw-megan-willis-more-cat-osterman-catcher
Well sorry this was so long lol! If you read this whole thing thank you! The NPF championship games will be on ESPN2!! So please tune it to watch it!!
Well thank God for you that is all I have for now lol! Go Pride, Go Shokki(girls will be heading back to Japan very soon so I thought I'd start throwing that back in there lol), Go Huskies, Boomer Sooner, RTR Go Bama, and FTG!!
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