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.