Summer Camp is here!

Monday morning starts our annual Shocker Softball Summer Camp. Every year we take a 4 day period during the summer and really get down to the basics with kids from all around the mid-west..and sometimes the nation! It is always a fun time to teach the game, get to know the future stars of tomorrow, and work on my farmers tan!
If you or someone you know are interested in attending, log on to www.goshockers.com and visit the "Shocker Camps" page. Click on softball and all the information you will need will be right there!
The recruiting season is in full swing and as always we have been out in force looking for future Shockers! Seen alot of great ball so far this summer!

Rewards Starting to Roll in for our New Shockers!

Incoming Wichita State softball player Hayley Temple has been named the Arizona Small Schools Player-of-the-Year for the 2008-09 academic year by the Arizona Republic.Temple helped lead Chandler Valley Christian to a 24-5-2 record and a spot in the 2A state tournament this spring. Her .624 batting average, .670 on base percentage and 1.161 slugging percentage were tops in the state while her 11 triples led the nation. She also ranked in the state’s top 10 in RBI (41), runs (43) and doubles (13).In the circle she led the state with 315 strikeouts and ranked in the top 10 with a 0.60 earned run average, 176 innings pitched and 21 wins.

“I’m kind of shocked,” Temple told the Republic. “We didn’t win state. I always thought whoever wins state, their best player would get (the Player of the Year award). I feel really honored and special.”

Derby senior Sammie Shook, who lead Derby to a top 8 finish in KS 6A State Tournament, was recently named to the Wichita Eagle All-Metro Softball Team. The All-Metro team covers the counties of Sedgwick (Wichita), Butler, and Harvey. Sammie was also named 1st Team All Ark Valley-Chisolm Trail League. On the year Shook batted .405, with a outstanding .825 slugging percentage, drove in 35 runs, and belted 8 homers. State honors have not been anounced yet, but I'm sure this Shocker will be among those honored!

"U-Dub" Wins the National Championship

What a great WCWS this year! If you have been a fan and have followed Division 1 softball for awhile, you know that the West Coast has had a stranglehold on the rest of the country when it comes to winning national championships. This year, as has been the trend over the last 7-8 years, parity has started to spread out across the board. For the first time ever, there was no one dominant team and you didn't know what to expect game to game. That left you sitting there intrigued and glued to the TV watching the drama unfold in front of you! Who would have thought that mighty Arizona, winner of 7 national championships, would be on the other side of the worst defeat in WCWS history, losing 14-0 to Alabama. Or that the defending national champions, Arizona State, would not even make it to the semi-final round. For the first time ever, 3 of the 4 finalist were from the SEC, the other being Washington of the Pac-10. In the end, Florida (on a dramatic 2 out, walk off grand slam) and Washington (who had to with stand two hard fought games against Georgia) made it to the best 2 out of 3 championship round. The Huskies prevailed in the 1st game 8-0, and in a close battle Washington pulled out the 2nd game 3-2 to win the programs 1st National Championship. With that win the book closes on the 2009 NCAA Division 1 season. What a whacky year it has been! I can only imagine what 2010 would bring....all I can say is watch out, 2010 is the year of the SHOCKER!!!!

WSU Athletics wins MVC All-Sports Trophy!

For the fifth time in the last six years, Wichita State University has captured the Missouri Valley Conference All-Sports Trophy and owns a league-best 17 overall titles. Wichita State won its all-sports title for the first time since 2007 in one of the closest results in league history. WSU edged second-place Illinois State by 0.06 points. The Shockers won a league-best four titles (women’s cross country, volleyball, men’s golf and women’s tennis), while placing in the top four in 12 of 15 sports in which they sponsor.

Wichita State has won the All-Sports Trophy 17 times, including 1964-66, 1976, 1978-83, 1987-1988, 2004-07 and 2009. WSU has also been runner-up eight times, the last time being the 1997-98 season. The Shockers finished third in 2008.

The All-Sports Trophy is based on a school’s average finish in each of the sponsored championships by the Missouri Valley Conference. Teams are awarded one point for first, two for second, three for third, etc., and the total accumulated points are divided by the number of sports in which a particular school competes. Finishes in baseball, basketball, soccer, softball, tennis and volleyball are based on regular-season competition. All other sports are determined by finish at the championship tournament or championship meet.

Season in Review

What a season! I cannot believe that this year has flown by so fast that it is now summer and we are getting ready for a whole new team to come in! Even though the season didn't go like we thought it would, 2009 showed a promise of a bright future for Shocker Softball. With most of our starters juniors and underclassmen, and nearly all of our freshmen seeing significant playing time at some point during the season, the 2010 Shockers will be back to form and better than ever!
Several of our athletes had some remarkable seasons and were honored by our conference recently. Sophomore C Heather Gerritse was named 1st Team All Missouri Valley Conference. "Gerr" led the Shocks in batting avg. at .352 and hit a career high 3 HR. In Valley play, she ranked 5th overall with a .375 BA and all 3 of her HR's were hit in conference. Junior 2B Kara L'Huillier was named 2nd team All Missouri Valley Conference after she hit a career high .325 BA, tied for the team lead with 8 HR's, and led the team in RBI's with 34.
Several other Shocks had great seasons and will look to them for bigger things to come next season. Sophomore OF Kiersten Dixon broke out with a career high .296 BA, tied for the team lead with 8 HR's, led the team in 3B's with 2, and knocked in 25 RBI's. Freshman OF Kersti Rowan led the team in SB's, going 15-17 on the season while hitting .278 on the season. Another Freshman, SS Bobo Brown, started off hot hitting over .300 for the 1st half of the season and knocked out 3 HR's. Freshman P Kasha Kolb led the team in K's with 207 on the season while opponents hit only .237 against her in conference.
We are excited to welcome several new faces to our lineup next season! We will have local product Sammie Shook joining our program as well as Texan Danika Miller and Haley Temple of Arizona. All are very talented athletes and are receiving very deserving post season awards for their work on the field and in the classroom.
With the summer months upon us, it means it is time for us to get back out on the road and recruit. We are looking forward to getting out and watching talented athletes and great softball all summer!

Spring Practice Begins!

The time is now! We started our preperations for the 2009 season last week with a spirited 2 hour practice last Tuesday. In all, we got 5 practices in where we were able to cover all aspects of the game. So far, our offensive practices have been great! We are hitting the ball better than when we ended the fall. Hopefully we will continue to climb that ladder and get better through out the season. Defensively, we have been a little shaky, but we have a talented group of infielders and outfielders, so it will come around by our first pitch. We are now two weeks and 4 days away from 1st pitch! Everday we practice, we have a countdown on our practice plans. Today marks only 14 more practices until we leave for Phoenix! That may seem like alot to some people, but to us coaches, we always want more!

Happy New Year!!

Can you believe that it is 2009! 2008 went by so fast! It seems like yesterday that the '08 season ended and now another season is upon us in less than a month. Our team will report back this Sunday to get ready for practice on the 13th. We have 3 weeks of practice before we fly out to Phoenix, Arizona to start our season at the Kajikawa Classic hosted by Arizona State.

Over half of our team is back taking Pre-session classes, and have been coming in to get some work in on their own, whether that be hitting, fielding, or throwing. They can't hardly contain their enthusiasm over what the upcoming season can behold!

Our Newest Shockers!

This past Wednesday was the 1st day of the NCAA Early Signing Period. It starts a two week period were student-athletes sign the National Letter of Intent (NLI) to the school that they committed to and officially become a part of that program. But that signature is more than just some scribble on a piece of paper. It is a snapshot of all the years, hard work, and money that the student-athlete and the parents have put into to come to this point...to fulfill a dream.

We are very excited to welcome Danika Miller, Sammie Shook, Haley Temple and their family's into our Shocker Softball family. These three outstanding young ladies are not only great athletes, but great people that will make an immediate impact on our program when they arrive in August.

Danika Miller is an outfielder with blazing speed from Lake Dallas, TX. She is a former teammate of fellow signee, Haley Temple, when they were younger and became superstars! She currently plays for the Texas Fusion Gold, and also has spent time with the Texas Elite and Texas Scutt Avengers. Her 14U Elite squad finished 5th at 14U Nationals in 2005. Has been named to the All-District 2nd team twice and Academic All-District 1st team. We are expecting Danika to step in and compete for a spot in the outfield and be a terror on the base paths.

Sammie Shook is an infielder with outstanding athletic ability and natural power from Derby, KS, a suburb of Wichita. She currently a member of the Kansas Renegades Gold. Not only is Sammie an outstanding All-State softball player, but she is also All-State volleyball player as well and was offered opportunities to play volleyball at the Division 1 level. Sammie can play every position in the infield and can change a game with one pitch with her power.

Haley Temple is also an infielder with exceptional athletic ability and a smooth swing from Mesa, AZ. She has recently switched teams, but spent the last few years playing with the Killer Bees 16U program. Haley has been named to numerous All-State and All-District squads. She flew out for our last summer camp, which is were we got to work first hand with her and knew we had to make her a Shocker! Haley will push our returners for playing time and a starting position and will hit for a high average.

This past weekend we held our annual Shocker Softball Fall Clinic. We had a awesome turnout! We had a great time working with over 140 athletes hailing from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas. We had our hitting session over two periods on Saturday and then held our pitching and catching session on Sunday afternoon. This was the best turnout we have had for our fall clinics!

Our team is now in the final two weeks of individuals before we shut it all down for the holidays and finals. This has been a great three weeks of individuals so far. The weather has been great, so we have been able to get alot of work in, and you can see everyone getting better and better with every swing and every catch. Makes me wish that February 6th was already here!

GO RAYS!!!

Couldn't resist! My dad has lived in the Tampa area my whole life, and for as long as I can remember, that area was dying to get a professional baseball team. They finally got one in 1998 when MLB awarded them the Devil Rays. 10 years later, they are unexpectantly in the World Series, and that side of my family is going nuts! As a lifelong baseball fan, I love October baseball. To me there is no better sporting event in all of sports than the excitment that surrounds the MLB postseason.

Musings by Coach Kuhlmeyer

Ok, not necessarily musings, but the title got your attention right!

The fall season is now over. The weather is turning cooler, days are getting shorter, recruiting is heating up, and the stretch run of the academic semester is now upon our team. After having what has definetly been a great fall season, our programs attention now turns to concentrating on the little things. We have started individuals back up, and can honestly say that this may have been the best week of individual practices in my 2.5 years here. Like I have previously posted, our individuals sessions are split up into four, half hour sessions, four days a week. Its all about getting back to the basics and concentrating on doing the little things right. Our team is also getting after it harder in the weight room as well, working on building on the solid foundation they started since the start of the semester, and getting quicker and more agile.

Academically, it has been a solid semester so far, but now is the time when they will have to step it up and really bear down on their studies. The NCAA only allows us 8 hours per week to do the things we need to do softball wise (only two hours of that can be skill instruction), so they have alot more time on their hands to get the job done. Coach Burris, along with our advisor with the Athletics Student Services department, keeps close tabs on our teams academics. She periodically schedules individual meetings with them to go over their grades, areas they need help in, setting academic goals until the next meeting, etc. Doing this helps us to not only stay on top of things, but also keeps reinforcing how important their grades and progressing along to their degress really is.

As always, GO SHOCKERS, and hope you continue to enjoy this blog. More postings to come soon!

Fall Practice Update

It is the halfway point in our fall season, so it is time to update everyone on how the team is shaping up. With the majority of the team underclassmen, you might look at our roster and deem us young and inexperienced. But after three weeks of practice, and two weekends of games, this team has started to mesh together and starting to look like a ball club that has played with each other for awhile and creating a special chemistry unlike any we have had here before. Our first weekend out, the nerves got the best of some of the rookies and veterans, and you saw some mistakes made. But this past weekend, the offense exploded for 19 runs and stole over 10 bases in two games, and the pitching staff allowed only 1 run, 5 hits, and 15 K's in two games combined. Though we moved alot of people around and changed up the lineup in the middle of each game, the defense played very well and we are starting to see how versatile our team can be. We have two weekends of games remaing to get better: Oct. 4th vs. Washburn (KS) University (DH), and Oct. 11th vs. Butler County (KS) Community College (DH).

Practice like a Shocker-Individuals

It's that time of year! The last part of August/early Sept. marks the start of our practice portion of our fall semester. We start out every year with a couple weeks of "individuals." During the fall, we are only allowed to practice a certain amount of days as a team, which equals to about a month. Before and after this time, Division 1 schools are allowed to invest only 8 hours of time to skill instruction and strength and conditioning. Only 2 hours of that time can be invested in actual skill instruction each week. Here at Wichita State, we divide that time up into 4, 30 minute session per athlete. Our individual schedule usually looks like this: Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays are offensive days, and Wednesdays are defensive days. During these sessions, we devote this time to concentrate on the fundamentals and doing the little things right. During the offensive sessions, we do alot of tee and front toss drill work. On defense, we spend the first day getting back to the fundamentals of throwing and fielding, and then we will get some repititions from the plate the last 8-10 minutes. We do this so our returners can have a refresher course and get back in the flow of things, and give our rookies a good foundation on how we do things here before fall team practice starts.

First Team Party

This past Friday was the first team party over at Coach Pooch's house. This was the first time the whole team and staff have gotten together outside of a "softball" atmosphere and were able to relax and have some fun together. The staff had fajitas catered by On The Border (a big team favorite!), and everyone played alot of pool and watched the Olympics on tv. After everyone ate, the staff talked to the team on what it means to be a "Shocker Softball" player, and all that entails, and gave out the first practice t-shirt of the year. Above is the first team picture of the year, a couple of our players stuffing their faces with fajitas (eating is a big deal with our team!), and some of the new rookies chilling out with some of the returners.

Former Shockers Face Olympians

Earlier this summer, four recently graduated Shockers, Britnee Barnett, Katie McGeeney, Cynthia Verhulst, and Ashly Bright, had the opportunity to face the U.S. Olympic Softball Team as part of the Mid-West All-Stars. In addition, Coach Perniciaro was selected to be an assistant coach on the squad. The team was made up of mostly current and former athletes from different schools in the Missouri Valley Conference. Even though the Olympians had another dominating performance, our former Shockers represented our program well. Katie McGeeney was the leadoff hitter and recorded a hit off of Cat Osterman, while pitcher Ashly Bright pitched almost two innings, allowing a couple of hits and striking out Crytl Bustos and Caitlin Lowe. Former 4 time All-Missouri Valley shortstop, Britnee Barnett, dazzled the crowd with several great defensive plays.

A New Year is Here!

Today marks another chapter in Shocker Softball history as the 2008-2009 Shockers meet as a team for the first time this morning. All the new "rookies" moved into their dorms in Fairmount Towers, and are now slowly getting acclumated to life as a Shocker! Our newest Shockers consist of BoBo Brown (Bakersfield, CA), Kersti Rowan (Dallas, TX), Holly Eckert (Athens, TX), Kasha Kolb (Chelsea, OK), Brittney "Ozzy" Osborn (Edmond, OK), and Hillary Fort (Ankeny, IA). We held our 1st team meeting at 9 A.M. this morning, afterwards the team attended a meeting with all of the student-athletes at WSU to welcome them back to school, go over academic policies, etc. This evening they will have to go through an eye exam with the team doctors before taking their physicals tomorrow evening. School starts on Thursday (which they are all excited about!), and then the grind starts Sunday morning with our 1st round of conditioning test.

Good Luck Shockers!

Congratulations to two of our newest Shockers, Kersti Rowan (Texas Travelers) and Kasha Kolb (Oklahoma Attack) and their teams for qualifying for the 2008 ASA Gold National Tournament being held next week in Oklahoma City! We are proud of you and look forward to having you, and all of our "Rookie" Shockers, here very soon!

Welcome to the new Shocker Softball Blog!

This is a new and exciting way for you to keep up with the Shockers and get a more indepth look at our program. We will periodically post new stories by coaches and players, photos, and videos of different things dealing with our program. Check back often to check out all the new material!