(07-22-2019 11:42 AM)HerdZoned Wrote:  

(07-22-2019 10:23 AM)herdfan129 Wrote:  I agree with that as well. Need to recruit 4 year high school players and build an actual program. That might get easier to do with a new stadium and actual support. Baseball might have to resort to JUCOs because of the lack of support for the program.

We have pretty good baseball in this region. I would think with a new stadium we could also recruit some of those northern recruits. We can pitch them getting to play in a southern based conference and CUSA is actually a pretty respectable baseball conference.

We will always be at a disadvantage being the northern most baseball team. Luckily the IPF and other things helps with this. Guess the best way around it is to go after northern kids and offer them the opportunity to be relatively close to home while playing in a southern/national based conference against good competition.

I don't buy the facility issue as a reason to recruit mostly Juco's. Did you ever see where Marshall played softball before Dot Hicks Field opened in 2008. It was basically an empty lot with a fence around it and maybe room for 100 to watch. And yet Stanton was able to recruit players like Rachel Folden, Amanda and Jessica Williams, Rebecca Gamby and others. Waggoner has had a 4600 seat minor league stadium to sell to recruits.

One of the best pitchers in the state, Scott High School's Carter Lyles grew up a Marshall fan and Waggoner and his staff never contacted him the 4 years he was in HS and he is now headed to WVU to play.