nkysoftball

Wow, that is a lot of work in one summer.

Haven't been out there in a while, how does the field compare with SK and WV?

That would definetely hurt, SK plays a lot of games and tournaments. On the bright side Morgan is a big strong kid and man can she hit.

6-3 SK

Man you are a softball junkie if you know how many players Hop Central and North have lost. Did Green County lose their pitcher? If they did that is pretty big. On the other hand, Ryle has their pitcher back and that is what sets them apart, IMO. Seems like about once every 5 or 6 years a big dominant 8th grade pitcher ends up on the mound at Ryle.

Green Co, Ryle, Hopkins Central, North Laurel. Went 0-4 in close games, it is a hard sale to get teams from Northern Kentucky into the top 25.

I'm not sure how a coach could rank the players anyway. There are plenty of times that a player may rank 10-15 any ability, but has a quality that gets them in the lineup (great bat, great fielder, excellent pitcher) seems that it would only add confusion.

No, GRC and Montgomery are comparable. None are outright better.

Yes I saw it. What I would consider brutal would be 7 or 8 top 25 teams. Walton only plays 3 ranked between 15 and 25 and I do believe it is a very good schedule especially for a Northern Kentucky team.

Walton plays a challenging schedule, brutal may be a little bit much considering the "a" tournament and conference tournament.

This may not be complete, just a few: Cumberland,Pikeville,Union, and Lindsey Wilson; may be a couple more and I would guess the other NAIA schools are considering it.

Always wondered why one of the private schools didn't pull in all the top talent in Northern Kentucky to have a team capable of being a state championship contender year in and year out like Owensboro Catholic?

May I ask why you do not coach high school softball?

Clyde, I don't agree with your statement about hitting being different. Blue Colonel touched on this a little as well with the rotational/linear approach. I've seen only a hand full of really good swings in this area. A lot of people have the mentality that they are little girls they are not supposed to hit the ball hard. Watch the college world series and see those girls pounding home runs and doubles all over the place. To be honest most little girls start out with a pretty good swing until some rec coach teaches them to hit ground balls to shortstop expecting her to miss it.

Where are they? When you say experience, I gave you the most experienced coaches in the area and you still didn't think they had enough experience. Here is the way I see it, you are getting the best this area has to offer and you are complaining that it isn't good enough.

Notice I included assistants.

OK, first off the coaches or assistants at Boone,Ryle,Conner,Walton,Grant,SK,Campbell,Brossart and NCC have all been travel coaches with a pretty fair amount of success. So who is it you are saying isn't qualified? Most of the rest of the NK teams not mentioned are the old slow pitch teams. I would be willing to bet you if you dropped slugger ball coach into Dayton or Silver Grove he would not have near the success he has with the whole Louisville metro area to choose from. Coaching isn't the problem.

SSC, you have mentioned several times that the quality of coaching at the Northern Kentucky High Schools is lacking. What are the traits that you would look for in a "good" high school softball coach in this area? I don't want to hear ex-college player either, I already don't agree there. I am pretty sure Mike Candrea,Patrick Murphy or Ralph Weekley never played college softball. Just wanted your opinion, and how do you think a good coach would be able to work to their best with a kid like your daughter alongside the girl that only plays because her friend does and never works on the game other than during the high school season?

Porky, I do agree with you about Boone County having a better rec program, but I can't agree with it being good. The facilities are awful and in comparison to other recreation leagues it has become extremely expensive. The county needs to pitch in some money, it seems everywhere else you go the county does a much better job supporting softball.

I think you hit on it with the "ton of energy" statement. My kids have played for several ex college players as well as several non-players and I would not rate the ex-players any better as a whole. I couldn't disagree with you more on your coaching statement, the biggest problem in this area is the recreation and summer programs. "Most" of the high school coaches in this area are getting girls that have little if any knowledge of the game and are expected to work miracles.

Where have you seen the asst. coach at? Being an ex-college player does not automatically make her a good coach.

You could very well be right, if he made a mistake my guess is that it would have been overconfidence. I have not seen enough of the 2 girls to know if there is that much difference, if there is any at all, I do know their pitching records were almost identical.

Coach took Oldham from a 12-16 record to 27-9 and was named 8th region coach of the year, no reason to question his decisions in my opinion. Oldham scored only 1 run that day against the best pitcher in the region anyway. It just wasn't their day. As for players to watch in the region, I would go with the returning all 8th region players and fill in from there: Ginn-Walton Galvan-South Oldham Leanhart-Oldham Morgan-Simon Kenton Vaughn-Henry County Seng-Gallatin County

Well, going into the first round game Oldham was 15-0 in the region and had already beaten Spencer earlier in the year 6-0, unless he was planning to pitch the Mcilhinny girl all 3 games that would be the game to pitch her. The Leanhart girl is a very good pitcher. Don't like the wording and implication, if he had said he pitched his #2 it would have been better.

To be fair, at the time one was 13-4 and the other 12-4, the fact the kid was his daughter is irrelevant.