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!