Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (Ducks done)

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frogsnouts
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by frogsnouts »

I like playing Washington better than Oklahoma. Keep that home field crowd away from Oregon.
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by Greenblood »

Ducks have yet to start 2-0 in the CWS under White, correct?
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by GrandpaDuck »

I'm going to have to see that play at third again in replay, but to the best of my memory it was a no brainer for Kleist to go to the third.

It was the sure out. She fielded the ball to the third base side of the mound. The play was in front of her with the runner in clear view. She knew she had time to softly lob the ball and beat the runner by a step and a half. Jenna simply forgot it was a force and made a high tag to boot. A throw to first would have required a pivot and a high velocity throw. Kleist took the lay up.

When the lead runner is also a force play right in front of you that checks all the boxes.
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by GrandpaDuck »

Oregon really worked over the Washington catcher in their series. It will be tempting to run on her again and again. Hopefully she hasn't vastly improved since then.
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by Merganzer »

Greenblood wrote:Ducks have yet to start 2-0 in the CWS under White, correct?
http://goducks.com/news/2018/5/31/softb ... vance.aspx

Making their fifth WCWS appearance under White, the Ducks have never opened the series with consecutive wins.
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Alan
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by Alan »

GrandpaDuck wrote:I'm going to have to see that play at third again in replay, but to the best of my memory it was a no brainer for Kleist to go to the third.

It was the sure out. She fielded the ball to the third base side of the mound. The play was in front of her with the runner in clear view. She knew she had time to softly lob the ball and beat the runner by a step and a half. Jenna simply forgot it was a force and made a high tag to boot. A throw to first would have required a pivot and a high velocity throw. Kleist took the lay up.

When the lead runner is also a force play right in front of you that checks all the boxes.
Like you grandpaduck, I need to see the play again to know for sure, I can't even remember if it was 11-5 or 11-6 at that time or if they had an out by then. With that said, I think when Kleist field the ball she had her back to third... I think. the third baseman was not ready for the play and had to scramble to the play, so is why she didn't have her foot on the bag. In my minds eye she had a easy play to first and/or second base. At this point in the game up by 5 to 6 scores it was all about outs, but the bottom line is it really doesn't matter, Ducks won and the Ducks got the call........ but it's good conversation! Lol
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by GrandpaDuck »

Alan wrote:
GrandpaDuck wrote:I'm going to have to see that play at third again in replay, but to the best of my memory it was a no brainer for Kleist to go to the third.

It was the sure out. She fielded the ball to the third base side of the mound. The play was in front of her with the runner in clear view. She knew she had time to softly lob the ball and beat the runner by a step and a half. Jenna simply forgot it was a force and made a high tag to boot. A throw to first would have required a pivot and a high velocity throw. Kleist took the lay up.

When the lead runner is also a force play right in front of you that checks all the boxes.
Like you grandpaduck, I need to see the play again to know for sure, I can't even remember if it was 11-5 or 11-6 at that time or if they had an out by then. With that said, I think when Kleist field the ball she had her back to third... I think. the third baseman was not ready for the play and had to scramble to the play, so is why she didn't have her foot on the bag. In my minds eye she had a easy play to first and/or second base. At this point in the game up by 5 to 6 scores it was all about outs, but the bottom line is it really doesn't matter, Ducks won and the Ducks got the call........ but it's good conversation! Lol
So .... just watched the play about 10 times and my memory was off. The ball was hit sharply right at her and she fielded it cleanly. She obviously had decided pre-pitch that she'd go to third on a firm comeback as she turned to third with no hesitation and threw it softly to third. Jenna was playing about 10 feet in towards home plate. She made it back to the bag as the throw got there and the ball made it there in plenty of time but Jenna misjudged her foot and the bag. She did slide the foot the extra inches to the bag about the time the runners foot hit the bag but I would have called the runner safe anyway. Where the third base ump was he really didn't have an angle to see the gap between foot and bag and the throw was there in plenty of time.

So it wasn't as much of a no brainer as I originally thought. I believe it was a case of a pre-pitch decision of "if I get hot one right back to me I can get the lead".
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by shoparound »

I think one of the biggest differences going into the post season this year is that our best hitters are not in a slump.
Previous years, you can just feel that the bats were getting cold, and almost no clutch hitting going towards postseason.
Hopefully these good bats continue!
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by Alan »

GrandpaDuck wrote:
Alan wrote:
GrandpaDuck wrote:I'm going to have to see that play at third again in replay, but to the best of my memory it was a no brainer for Kleist to go to the third.

It was the sure out. She fielded the ball to the third base side of the mound. The play was in front of her with the runner in clear view. She knew she had time to softly lob the ball and beat the runner by a step and a half. Jenna simply forgot it was a force and made a high tag to boot. A throw to first would have required a pivot and a high velocity throw. Kleist took the lay up.

When the lead runner is also a force play right in front of you that checks all the boxes.
Like you grandpaduck, I need to see the play again to know for sure, I can't even remember if it was 11-5 or 11-6 at that time or if they had an out by then. With that said, I think when Kleist field the ball she had her back to third... I think. the third baseman was not ready for the play and had to scramble to the play, so is why she didn't have her foot on the bag. In my minds eye she had a easy play to first and/or second base. At this point in the game up by 5 to 6 scores it was all about outs, but the bottom line is it really doesn't matter, Ducks won and the Ducks got the call........ but it's good conversation! Lol
So .... just watched the play about 10 times and my memory was off. The ball was hit sharply right at her and she fielded it cleanly. She obviously had decided pre-pitch that she'd go to third on a firm comeback as she turned to third with no hesitation and threw it softly to third. Jenna was playing about 10 feet in towards home plate. She made it back to the bag as the throw got there and the ball made it there in plenty of time but Jenna misjudged her foot and the bag. She did slide the foot the extra inches to the bag about the time the runners foot hit the bag but I would have called the runner safe anyway. Where the third base ump was he really didn't have an angle to see the gap between foot and bag and the throw was there in plenty of time.

So it wasn't as much of a no brainer as I originally thought. I believe it was a case of a pre-pitch decision of "if I get hot one right back to me I can get the lead".
While I still haven't seen the replay I can see the move to third being a planed move, she did no to hesitate to throw to third. It worked out by the grace of a bad call, but I feel for the situations it was the wrong move......... but much more important things are coming! Winners bracket, Huskies...... 4:00..... ESPN! Go Ducks!
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by duckduckgoose »

The thing I found the most interesting from yesterday’s game was the story about DJ coming to the Ducks. That the coaching staff didn’t want to mess with her hitting and actually had her teach the whole team some of the hitting philosophy of her old coach from Louisiana-Lafayette. You can see that this iteration of the Ducks is way more aggressive at the plate and I’m glad Mike White played his cards the way he did, and didn’t get all defensive about doing things his way only.


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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by duckduckgoose »

After watching all four games, I like our chances if we can continue playing like we are. Georgia is all offense and no d. Washington has as good or better pitching but doesn’t have our offense. Florida looks like it can match our offense but their pitching looked very beatable. Oklahoma couldn’t handle Washington’s pitching but their pitcher was very good as well. I didn’t see all of the UCLA -FSU game but both teams pitching looked good except for the inning that UCLA gave up all those runs.



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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by Greenblood »

Some thoughts after watching my recording of ASU-Oregon:

Ducks were fortunate that ASU was so crappy on defense. I think anyone watching the game knows that "only" two errors charged to ASU does NOT tell the story of how shoddy the Sun Devils' D was. That said, if Lindvall makes what looked like a very makeable play (that was scored as a hit) in the top of the 5th, Elish quite possibly gets out of that inning with no runs given up instead of allowing the 3-run HR, and maybe even completes the game herself.

I felt the home plate ump was a little inconsistent with his strike zone, though I don't know that it favored one team over the other. But I DID think Kleist looked squeezed in the top of the 7th, where I thought any -- or all -- of the first three pitches called balls on the first batter could have been strikes (remember that Kleist walks almost no one); and if Kleist gets that first batter out, that could have changed the entire complexion of how that inning ended up going. (And all of that makes me feel less bothered that we "got away" with something on that play at third.) Really glad for her confidence -- as I understand that White has confirmed that Kleist will be the starter in today's game -- that she only allowed the run and was able to close with a couple of Ks.

I agree, btw, with Grandpa's "revised" assessment of the Kleist play to third in the 7th. I wonder what White thinks Kleist should have done on that play.
-------------------------
The stakes only get higher now. Would be very painful to lose to UW (a reminder that I live and work in the Seattle area). Maybe UW did get "lucky" vs. OU, but sometimes that can give a team confidence, like things are going "their way." A team playing with confidence can be a dangerous team.
Last edited by Greenblood on Fri Jun 01, 2018 10:52 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

Post by OregonFan4Life »

Well Greenblood, to play devil’s advocate regarding your point about Washington, sometimes playing with too much confidence can be a bad thing, and that’s a little bit of what I saw from Washington yesterday. They took some VERY risky moves, and every single one of them happened to pay off, when they easily could’ve hurt them badly. Just that diving catch to end the 6th inning shows how risky they were playing, I’m sure almost every coach would not want to see their player dive for a catch like that, and if she missed that catch, it very well could’ve been an in the Park home run and Oklahoma would’ve won. However is she played it safe Oklahoma would’ve gotten 1 run and Washington could’ve gotten the next batter out and went into the 7th with a 1 run lead, which with their great defense, is an awesome scenario. I get what you’re saying about confidence, but there’s been many times in sports where too much confidence ends up haunting a team, and from what I saw yesterday, I think Washington might have too much confidence. Let’s hope the bounces don’t got their way every single time against Oregon like it did against Oklahoma.


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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

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Why are we the designated away team as the #1 seed?
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Re: Softball: 2018 Women's College World Series (W vs ASU)

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Lost opportunity there, DJ and Gwen were completely confused by that pitcher.


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