If one position in softball this year has made the difference, it's

3rd base. Last year, I think we had Reedy Davenport there, and she did a great job. We had a very good, complete infield. With her departure, it's as if Rittman didn't know what to do. Alex Brown started the season there, then got moved to 2nd. Logoleo has been holding down 3rd most of the season, but I think we've had Maddie there, too. The infield has just been kind of all over the place and we've subsequently had a lot of careless and costly errors. Maddie is a great fielder, but her accuracy can be dangerously off, sometimes. Same with Logoleo. It's like we lost 3rd base, never really found a great replacement for Davenport, and it's cost us ever since. I've no doubt that all the girls are doing their best at the positions they're at. They're all hard workers and competitors, for sure, and not their fault if they're in a position where they may lack consistency.

Everyone's been talking about the need for pitchers next year - and that'll be a big one. But with 3rd base still unsettled and Logoleo leaving, I think the infield will be just a significant of a need. Rittman has a lot of work cut out for him this off-season!

Go Tigers!

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Re: If one position in softball this year has made the difference, it's

May 14, 2024, 10:58 AM

A few things…Reedy Davenport was a phenomenal at 3rd base. She settled the entire infield requiring Logoleo at SS to not have to cover as much of the area around 3rd as she had to this year. No doubt it was a huge hole that needed to be filled this season. That said, you got the rotation of infielders a bit wrong.

The season started with
1B: Cagle/knowler
2B: Moore
SS: Brown (was all-ACC at SS for unc)
3B: Logoleo

Pretty quickly it became clear that Brown wasn’t quite aggressive enough or didn’t have a quick enough reaction to consistently field the ball and get it over to 1B for the out. After a couple games they switched Brown to 3B and Logoleo back to SS.

For a while we had
1B: Cagle/Knowler/Hiller (depending on who was available/pitching)
2B: Moore
SS: Logoleo
3B: Moore

There then became signs that confidence concerns might be becoming a problem so things were shuffled again
1B: Cagle/Knowler
2B: Brown
SS: Moore (who had basically not played SS since HS travel ball)
3B: Logoleo

In terms of the biggest impact for next year - who the heck knows. We lose our entire outfield, 90% of our inning pitched, and Logoleo (plus Cagle) in the infield (assuming nobody else transfers). Clark will probably be tough to replace but I’ve not seen a lot that tells me we have great pitching waiting in the wings - I hope I’m wrong though. If I had to do a lineup for next year right now I’d be praying for at least 1-2 pitchers transferring in along with at least 1 outfielder.

Pitcher: McCubbin/transfer/Duncan/freshman (Cintron)
C: Vieira/Burton
1B: Knowler/Stuart?
2B: Moore
3B: Brown/Whitesides
SS: Brown/freshman (Lardizabal/Pipkin)
OF: Johnson/Arial/ transfer/freshman(Minish)

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If one position in softball this year has made the difference, it's

Re: If one position in softball this year has made the difference, it's

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