(01-31-2017 02:31 PM)Duke Dawg Wrote: just around the corner.
Dukes ranked 14th to start.
Schedule not quite as good as last year's, but still some good matchups OOC:
#2 Auburn (2 games)
#19 Missouri (2 games)
#24 South Florida
Others receiving votes: Oklahoma St, UCF, Virginia Tech (2), UNC (2)
I'm pretty excited about softball. Went to the playoffs last year with my family and we had a GREAT time.
We return a legit national POY candidate in Megan Good. She was one of three college All American pitchers and she returns for her Junior year this year. Jailyn Ford was also outstanding and gave us perhaps the best 1-2 punch in pitching in the nation. That said, Megan was the better pitcher, and last year she played better in the playoff under pressure versus LSU.
In softball at times you play 4 times in 2 days. We will need a decent #2 to have a solid season. People will say - this "person" could be really good, but until we see it, we won't know. The odds are our #2 this year will be a step down from Jailyn Ford.
One good thing for us is one pitcher can carry a lot of the load in softball. For instance last year Megan actually pitched to 57% of the opposing batters. She started in 57% of the games. She played in 73% of the games. If she stay's healthy, that's a lot of "Good".
Jailyn started 23 of the remaining 24 games.
We only had 4 players pitch last year
Good - ERA - .94
Ford - ERA - 1.03
McCabe - ERA - 4.67
Tremain - ERA - 11.67
Obviously a HUGE drop off after Good and Ford.
Should be an exciting year. If Good were to get hurt - YIKES
