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.