The title says it all! We are just under a month away from the start of the 2012 college softball season! I'm so excited!! I think it's going to be a great season!! I laid awake for most of the night last night because I was wide awake. As I laid there I began to think about the upcoming softball season and decided it was time I do a blog and get my opinions out there. Going to do things a little different this season! But I hope you find it interesting!
Pac-12
I think the top 2 teams this season with Cal and ASU. Cal returns basically their whole team plus they get Valerie Arioto back. They are going to be hard to beat! ASU is going to be good but I don't know if they will be better than Cal. They of course will still have Dallas Escobedo but what won the WCWS in my opinion was not her. She struggled in the championship games and showed some weaknesses. The offense for ASU is what won the WCWS. It should be interesting how they do this year. I think next in line will be Oregon. They have a very strong roster this year and I think will have a great season. I think next will be Stanford. Then things get a little less clear. I think Washington, UCLA, and Arizona will be in this area but I'm not sure at this point what order. Washington is young, really young. There are alot of unknowns with this team. What is known? They bring back Kaitlin Inglesby. She had a wonderful freshman season both in the circle and even more so with her bat. She was a HUGE part of the powerful husky offense last season! I can only see things going up for her! Taylor Smith and Niki Williams both had back surgery last Spring/Summer. My hope is they both will be relieved of their pain and both be able to play all season and play better than they have in the past! Kimi Pohlman will be back and I expect she will have a huge senior season! I also look forward to seeing Victoria Hayward! She played with both the junior and senior Canadian teams over the last few months and has played very very well! I hope to see that all carry over to her season with the huskies! Hooch Fagaly will be back! Getting Fagaly back at first will be huge! Niki Williams did great but Hooch Fagaly is a much more natural first baseman than Niki is. Her bat will be huge as well! Arizona spent the offseason cleaning house. Time will only tell if the changes they made will be enough to fix their problems from last season. Everything I have heard has said Kenzie Fowler and Shelby Babcock are both 100% but that is what was said before last season as well and I personally don't think Kenzie Fowler was 100% at any point of last season. Her and Shelby both have to throw more strikes and walk less batters. Walks killed them last season! I'm not sure what to think about UCLA yet. We'll just have to wait and see! Sorry to all the Oregon State fans but I think it will be more of the same for them. I see no reason to think things will improve.
Big 12
This will be another close season for this conference. They've got some strong pitchers in this conference. OU brings back Keilani Ricketts(they also add another left handed pitcher from Australia that I think will be very good!). UT brings back Blair Luna. Mizzou brings back Chelsea Thomas. Baylor brings back Whitney Canion. Big 12 softball is definitely more about the pitching and less about offense. I think this conference finishes like this. I think OU, UT, Mizzou, Baylor, OSU, A&M, and Tech(seems like I'm missing somebody...hm lol). But really I think those first 4 could go in any order. Should be a good season for the Big 12 conference.
SEC
I think this will be a down year for the SEC teams. I look for Georgia to fall off the map atleast for this season. This will be a totally different team then we've seen the last 4 years. All the players that made Georgia softball well known are gone now. This a very young team and with the poor coaching they have in place at Georgia it's going to take awhile for them get back to where they were if they ever do. They had in my honest opinion the most talented team in the whole country last season. But again the coaching let them down. If you want further opinions from me on Georgia and their coaching just look back at previous blogs lol! Bama is in good hands with Jackie Traina. But I think it will take her a season to figure out this new role. They'll win a few games and do pretty well but this will not be the Bama team we are used to. I'm not sure what to think of Florida right now. They bring in a strong freshman class but we'll just have to see how that plays out. Tennessee is going to be at the top of this conference I believe. They bring back both Ivy and Ellen Renefroe and have a well established and experienced team. As for the other teams I think they will be about in the same place they were last year. But who knows one of them could surprise me!
There are some conferences that might throw out some good teams but those are the 3 main ones. I might come back to those later but right now I'm going to call this good!
