slot canyon

Don't overlook a very respectable gymnastics team. I would say softball team is in transition with a lot of new players this year and some good pitching help in the next recruiting class. New VB coach so wait and see on that sport. We know about the recent poor showing in the BB program as a number of comments on that topic.

A site called College Sports Madness makes their projection for the 2020 softball season top 44 teams. This is the link for AU for what it is worth. 26th overall and 9th SEC. https://www.collegesportsmadness.com/article/18218

KK Dismukes ……….https://auburntigers.com/news/2020/1/10/softball-get-to-know-kk-dismukes.aspx

Just noticed that Bailey Dempsey no longer appears on the roster. Yarbrough and Cavanaugh still listed and hopefully can provide some support.

Thanks for that. I have no idea who they have as candidates but along the lines you were suggesting AUGoo I looked at the Baylor staff. They made the semi-finals this year. One assistant Samantha Erger has been there 5 years as assistant coach/recruiting coordinator. Prior HC at a small college in Texas. Played her college VB at Bowling Green. She represents what may be available. She has a family and her spouses work may prelude someone like that from looking for another position. I am not implying that she is even a candidate but she has the type of profile that could be an example of possibilities. Also noticed their HC Ryan McGuyre who has been there since 2015 is only 44 years old. He has steadily improved the program from overall 17-13 his first year to this years 29-2. His previous job was an assistant at Florida State. I would be OK with an assistant with good resume who has a vision as to how recruit and improve the program,,,,,,,,don't expect a miracle; just forward progress.

I have been following Ms Blaine for about 2 years and from what I can read she is really impressive. Hope the commitment holds. I ordered season tickets this year but we live in Birmingham so don't know how many games we will be able to attend. We can make arrangements to meet as season gets closer. Staying over for week end games eats away at the wallet but I do enjoy the games. Believe we have some promising new players this year. War Eagle.

Don't know how long it takes to replace a volleyball coach. AU parted with Coach Nold on Dec 2. If you were going to force the current coach out then seems you would have some candidates in mind. Maybe the AD is still basking in the great performance of the football team down in Tampa and has been distracted. In 2018 Bama parted ways with their coach on 11/9 with 5 games remaining in the regular season. That year their SEC record was 7-11. On 12-18-18 They hired a new coach (Lindsey Devine from East Tennessee State) and this year finished with SEC record of 4-14. Seems we should hear something soon. Has anyone been tracking the AU planes to get a read on who we might be looking at? ✈️😄 Some of the top coaches I have checked on have been at their schools for 20+ years so likely difficult to pry a high profile coach away from an established program.

Carlee McCondichie https://auburntigers.com/news/2020/1/3/softball-get-to-know-carlee-mccondichie.aspx

From some of the games I have seen I have always enjoyed seeing batters miss on Swindle's change up and thought she might have fair number of strike outs. When I compared last season it was revealing. M. Martin only pitched to roughly mid March (prior to injury) and pitched 80 innings compiling 86 strike outs. Swindle (missed some of season with injury) pitched 132 innings with 76 strike outs. We have been successful in the past with the pitch to contact philosophy which will likely be in play this season but I get the impression that CMD would prefer to have "strike out" pitchers.

Sorry to admit I was in much the same boat. Tuned in during last 5 min. of 1st half which ended 47 - 18. Saw score this morning ending 77 - 55. The little I observed was painful to watch.

According to AU Softball Twitter page first practice is tomorrow.

I believe this has been hashed in some of the other softball topics but my summary would be something like this. At this point does not appear we have a shut down pitcher of the Carlson/Martin equivalent. We may do a lot of pitching by committee with 6 pitchers on staff at end of fall ball. Our most experienced are Swindle (senior) and Handley (junior). I would say the wild card would be KK Dismukes who was held out of fall ball in order to "rest her arm". She had an impressive high school career albeit at a smaller school. Also was good hitter. Others include Yarbrough, Dempsey and Cavanaugh all of whom pitched some in the fall. Can't say I have a good read on what the pecking order might be at this point. Guess we will get a better read on things in slightly more than 5 weeks. Want to give Swindle a tip of the hat for getting back in the circle after taking that line drive in the face last season. Something like that could easily get into your head.

Maia Engelkes https://auburntigers.com/news/2019/12/27/softball-get-to-know-maia-engelkes.aspx

Maybe a continuation of some of the observations in my post above. Looking at the top 25 D1 teams at years end they are spread all over the country. If there is any concentration I would say it is in the large state of Texas where 4 teams are represented; Baylor, Texas, Texas A&M. and Rice. Otherwise there is quite a scattering of top 25 ranked teams (including Hawaii). Looked for top VB producing states and will include a couple of paragraphs from 2015 MaxPreps article Toughest States to Win High School Volleyball State Title. "One reason it has become so difficult to win high school volleyball state titles in California, Kentucky, Texas and Indiana is because of parity. Another is the year-round club impact that is creating more talent and experience at an earlier age. According to the MaxPreps Computer Rankings presented by the Army National Guard, 18 of the Top 25 teams come from California (six), Texas (seven), Indiana (three) and Kentucky (two). In the Top 50, 31 are from those states. And in the Top 100, more than half (58) come from Texas, California, Kentucky and Indiana. It simply doesn't get more challenging than that." Although being tall would not be the only attribute of a good VB net player we could probably agree there is some advantage to being the one breathing the thinnest air. I noticed that Stanford had roster players 2 players listed at 6'6" and another at 6'5". Their star outside hitter Plummer at 6'6" had 22 kills during their domination of Baylor in the championship game. The Baylor roster listed 6'6" and 6'4" players. Closer to hope the #10 Gators have players listed 6'6", 6'7" and 6'8". Auburn's two tallest listed players were a couple of outside hitters @ 6' and 6'4". It would also be helpful to have a lot of fast twitch fibers, explosive jumping and good court vision. Looked at April 2019 article from Volleyball Mag.com they had ranking to top 50 recruited high school players. Some of the text follows: " And as usual two of the biggest states in the land, Texas and California, landed the most players on the list. The Lone Star State led with nine entries on the Fab 50, while California was right behind with eight." " Stanford had the most Fab 50 recruits this time around with five, with Purdue, Ohio State, Nebraska and Oregon coming in strong with three each. Will these four find their way to the top of the VolleyballMag.com women’s recruiting class rankings that will follow in several weeks? Stay tuned." Seems it would be an advantage for a coach to have a recruiting connection with the above noted states and a reputation of developing talent to compete at the highest level. I don't know that AU can pull in a top tier coach. May have to take a chance on someone who has shown promise at some lower level. I would be satisfied with steady progress in that case.

Searching for list of best VB countries the names mentioned at the top seemed to be Brazil, USA, China, Russia, Serbia in no particular order. Looking at some of the top teams this year the Stanford roster has 8 players from California and interestingly 2 from Kentucky. They do have a player from Canada. Baylor roster 10 from Texas and 4 from California. Also 1 player from British Columbia and 1 from Netherlands. Wisconsin had most of their players from Wisconsin and Illinois at 5 each. Kentucky did not appear to have any concentration as far as recruiting area; they had 2 home state players, 3 from Texas and 2 from Wisconsin. So just from a random sampling of some of the top teams it would not appear that there is not much of an international flavor. California and Texas appear to be well represented. Like other sports, If your program is highly regarded then you attract highly regarded athletes. However, there may be some advantage to having international connections and not having to go head to head with other US programs for some of those top players. Maybe with most of our other programs being "stable" AD Green can give this hire adequate attention and attract a coach with a successful profile who can attract good players and be a promoter of the program.