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Iowa Softball 2021-2022 Season

UptownHawk

All-Conference
Oct 23, 2002
317
378
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The fall softball schedule was released today and the roster has been updated with jersey numbers. Thought it was a good time to start a new thread for the new season.

Starting the season with a roster size of 25. Kit Rocco unfortunately is not on the roster anymore.

Go Hawks!
 

Spring 2022 Schedule was released today.
 
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Just a guess, but perhaps the decision to even have a tournament hasn't been made yet.
 
Just a guess, but perhaps the decision to even have a tournament hasn't been made yet.
Why wouldn't there be a Championship? Last day of regular season is May 8th and the NCAAs start May 19th, so the released Iowa schedule does leave a week for the B1G tournament.
 
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Don't know, other than to say events over the last year or so have shaken my confidence in the Big 10 administration. Perhaps they are anticipating another Covid variant to pop up in that time frame?
 
Row55, I am curious to see how the new pitchers. Coach G has always had strong pitchers at UCF so hopefully that continues.
 
Cool, will she be pitching Sunday vs Illinois State?
Sorry, just saw this... As you probably already know, yes she started against Illinois State. She made it thru 5 I think. Then a freshman, Kat Serna, came in to close it out. She worked herself into a little trouble both innings, but worked out if a bases loaded no out jam in the top of the 7th to secure the 3-2 win.

Kat started 2nd game and pitched 3 or 4 innings until Loecker finished the game.

Bree had nice changeup - FB low 60s
Kat had good movement - FB low 60s
Loecker threw the hardest. FB mid 60s

Those were the only pitchers on Friday and Sunday.
 
Here is a link to a podcast from InTheCircle. Yesterday Eric spoke to Drake and UNI's coach and said he'll talk to Coach G and ISU's coach later in the week. He's interviewed Coach G before and does a nice job. I believe he is based in Orlando and covers a lot of UCF sports so knows her well.


Illinois State was 31-10 last year so this was a nice win. It sounded like the NCAA spot UNI got came down to them and Illinois State. We did give up 11 hits in the game so to be able to escape with only 2 runs is amazing. Klosterman had four very nice catches on the run on well hit balls and Claypool had a diving catch as well. This weekend should be a good test for the young Hawks.

Go Hawks!
 
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Thanks for the link. Illinois State is strong pretty much every year, so I thought it was cool we scheduled them for the fall season. The Big 4 tournament in Cedar Falls this weekend should be interesting. Both UNI and Iowa State graduated very good, power-hitting shortstops, so they will have some rebuilding to do.

There were a couple of jersey numbers for Iowa that are not presently shown on the roster (17 and 26), I wonder if we picked up some newcomers.
 
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There were a couple of jersey numbers for Iowa that are not presently shown on the roster (17 and 26), I wonder if we picked up some newcomers.


Hey Row! I noticed the numbers being different from the roster on the website. 26 was Kat Serna the pitcher and 17 was Maggie Vasa middle infield.
 
Hey Row! I noticed the numbers being different from the roster on the website. 26 was Kat Serna the pitcher and 17 was Maggie Vasa middle infield.
Some of the freshman were wearing different numbers then their rostered numbers. The new uni's have not come in yet, and if the correct numbered uni was not correct size, then they just chose a different number for the fall, that was correct size. Numbers should be correct in the spring.
 
Come to think of it, the same thing with numbers happened a couple of seasons ago.
 

This is the same link as above. Coach G's podcast with Eric Lopez was released this morning. She goes first (about 4 and half minutes in until about the 50 minute mark) with ISU's coach after. I only listened to Coach G. Here are my takeaways:

Iowa is working on a fall scrimmage at the Field of Dreams stadium.
Pitching: Vasquez and Serena are looking to be the two go to pitchers, but Denali Loecker and Emma Henderson will get innings as well. She mentioned Greer is battling an illness or injury but might get innings in the spring.
Hitting: Lots of depth and has added more speed, but would like to add more speed in the next couple years. Feels like there is a lot of depth and has options, but needs everyone to do the little things right and hit the cover off the ball.
Defense: Defense should be good, but needs time to gel.

Eric asked about newcomers. She mentioned Doster and Maras who both played last weekend and also said Anna Henderson and Maggie Vasa have good bats, Riley Moss in the outfield as well as the pitchers above.

Go Hawks!!
 
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Iowa picks up another softball commitment from a Fort Dodge player. Dodger SS Tory Bennett.
 
The Hawks "won" the big 4 this weekend. Went 2-0-1. Beat UNI 2-1, tied Drake 3-3, and then beat ISU 2-1.

Pitching was very good. Only gave up 5 runs in 27 innings (games were 9 inning games) Vasquez, Loecker, Serna saw all the innings.

Defense was great. Only remember 1 error. Might of been a throwing error I don't remember, but very clean games.

Hitting will need to get better, but really only the 2nd weekend seeing live pitching, so hopefully gets better as season goes on.

All in all, pretty good weekend to build on.
 
No report on last 10 days? DMACC, Black and gold games???
DMACC game was much better. Came out and scored 5 in the first, then kept the hitting going all game. Might have only been a inning or 2 that we did not score at least 1 run out of 9 inning game. Scored 18 runs in the game. Hopefully that is a sign that things are starting to click. DMACC is a pretty good team, played ISU & UNI tough.

Black and Gold games are tied 1-1. Black took game 1, 10-4. Peek has been hitting very well these last 3 games or so... Gold took game 2 to even the series with a score of 5-3. There are several players out with injuries, so there are some players playing out of position, but overall, lots of good opportunities for game reps.

Rubber match this Thursday. Going to be a cold one....
 
DMACC game was much better. Came out and scored 5 in the first, then kept the hitting going all game. Might have only been a inning or 2 that we did not score at least 1 run out of 9 inning game. Scored 18 runs in the game. Hopefully that is a sign that things are starting to click. DMACC is a pretty good team, played ISU & UNI tough.

Black and Gold games are tied 1-1. Black took game 1, 10-4. Peek has been hitting very well these last 3 games or so... Gold took game 2 to even the series with a score of 5-3. There are several players out with injuries, so there are some players playing out of position, but overall, lots of good opportunities for game reps.

Rubber match this Thursday. Going to be a cold one....
How were the gold/black teams divided? I thought maybe it was previous players, but sound like split team.
 
How were the gold/black teams divided? I thought maybe it was previous players, but sound like split team.
Coach Prater and Coach Dillinger were captains and they had a "draft" to pick teams. Didn't hear any draft order or anything, just that there was a draft.
 
MossHawk - Thanks for the information on the scrimmages and games.

Some recruiting news. Jena Young from Winterset verballed to play for the Hawks. I believe she is a junior.
Young batted .423 with 11 homers for Winterset as a sophomore last season.

Former Hawk verbal Bella Bacon is now committed to Purdue.



 
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MossHawk - Thanks for the information on the scrimmages and games.

Some recruiting news. Jena Young from Winterset verballed to play for the Hawks. I believe she is a junior.
Young batted .423 with 11 homers for Winterset as a sophomore last season.

Former Hawk verbal Bella Bacon is now committed to Purdue.



Seen Jena play several times... Very good player, hit the ball extremely well every time I watched her. I saw that Bacon decommitted, not sure what happened with that? I am sure it is very hard on these staffs to manage the scholarship $$ with the covid years effecting every team differently. But who knows what happened there....
 
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Black is ahead of Gold 7-2. The game was stopped in the 5th inning due to the team being out of hours for the week. So they will resume play Tuesday at 2.
 
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I'm surprised there hasn't been an article yet on Hawkeyesport, but here are some of the future Hawks that signed last week.

Kelsey Winter, RHP, Tampa, FL R/R
Echo Mattiello, OF, Mesa, AZ, L/R
Avery Jackson, IF/OF, Kankakee, IL R/R
Skylinn Pogue, IF/C, Eureka, MO, R/R
Anna Streff, IF/UTL, Linn-Mar (IA) R/R
Bailey Olerich, OF, Clear Creek Amana HS (IA), L/R, .467 BA, 35/35 Stolen Bases L/R
Sterling Berndt, LHP, Wayne HS (IA), .505 BA, 6 Homers, 1.13 ERA, 20/20 Stolen Bases L/L
Tory Bennett, UTL, Fort Dodge (IA), .455 BA, 1 Homer, 23/25 Stolen Bases R/R
Jalen Adams, Fort Dodge (IA), RHP, .422 BA, 5 HR, .66 ERA L/R

Stats are from Iowa High School Games

We had a verbal from Jaylee Wilson from Missouri also. It does not appear she has signed yet.

Former verbals Bella Bacon and Zoe King signed with Purdue and North Dakota State. King appeared to have a lot of accolades. Not sure what happened with them.

We picked up a verbal from a 2023: Shamya Linder Clark a RHP from Alabama.

GO Hawks!!
 
And according to the roster, only 3 seniors? 1 of which has 1 more year after this 1. Interesting...
 

The link to the article is above. With the COVID year in play I would think all three seniors may have an additional year, but splitting up a limited amount of scholarships might not make it feasible to bring them all back.

It's interesting to see how the roster size over time has changed. Coach Blevins generally had 18 on the roster with 2 pitchers carrying most of the load, one player primarily to run and a bullpen pitcher plus the remaining players. Coach Looper started carrying larger rosters, but I remember a parent telling us that the administration was pushing for larger rosters for Title IX purposes, but I have no idea if that is accurate.

The pitcher from Florida did not commit until late last week so she must have been a late addition.

I'm excited from next season. Should be a fun group to watch. Looking forward to seeing them play in San Diego in person for the first time in a couple seasons.

Go Hawks!
 
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2023 Verbal List

Devin Simon, IF, Cascade, IA


Shamya Linder Clark, RHP, Huntsville, AL


Jena Young, Winterset, IA


Go Hawks!
 
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