Wednesday’s TC/USA Nationals Blog
Wednesday’s TC/USA Nationals Blog
The first of the three club softball National Championships is taking place this week in Reno and Tahoe, Nev. as the TC/USA Nationals kicked off Tuesday. Friday championships will be decided at the 18U, 16U and 14U levels; you can read more on the event by clicking here.
FloSoftball will be at the TC/USA Nationals all week where games are being streamed at the Golden Eagle Complex (Fields 10-14). I’ll be sharing news and notes and you can check out the scores by clicking on the links below too…
If you have any info or questions, e-mail brentt.eads@flosports.tv
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TODAY GAMES COUNT…
I’m at the Golden Eagle Complex for the 18U games and, like the 16U and 14U divisions, today it gets serious.
Win and you keep going in the Platinum bracket. Lose and your in that loser’s bracket still, but lose a second time and you’re put into a separate bracket to compete for a lower finish (can’t win it all, in other words).
So there’s a lot riding on games today and you can tell the energy is much different than the two pool games each team played yesterday.
THE TEXAS BLAZE ROLL ON
One team that’s worth keeping an eye on is Texas Blaze Gold – Slimp. They won both pool games yesterday and kicked off this morning with an 8-3 win over Rock-Way.
The Blaze is full of SEC and Big 12 talent but one player who is uncommitted—and shouldn’t be for long—is pitcher Makenzie Carpenter, a 2016 standout who has all the pitches including a rise and drop.
She also has a 5.87 GPA putting her in the top 10% of her graduating class.
Yesterday, Makenzie beat the talented So Cal Choppers not allowing any runs in four innings and today she held the Roc to four hits in the win.
Don’t expect her to be on the board for long…
Her battermate, by the way, is Taylor Ellsworth, the 2017 standout catcher who has committed to the Texas Longhorns.
If you watch the outstanding Episode 2 of the Cat Osterman: The Last Ride series you’ll see a lot about a past Longhorn star, Megan Willis, who is currently with the USSSA Pride with Cat.
Megan Willis is Taylor’s catching coach… not a bad one to learn from!
THE ERICKSON TRIO
Emilee Erickson is an outstanding catcher who led her Sandra Day O’Connor team from Phoenix, Ariz. to the Div. I state title this year.
Emilee is headed to BYU after committing in January, 2014 and she is the oldest of three catchers in her family… and she may not even be the best one, which is hard to believe as I watched her play in a 7-5 loss this morning to Tennessee Fury and Emilee is the real deal.
She’s also a middle infielder where she may play this next year for the Cougars as she’ll room with another great catcher in Libby Sugg, the star of the Birmingham Bolts title win Sunday at the DeMarini Invitational Classic where she hit a walk-off grand slam.
Emille was a three-sport star but quit playing basketball and volleyball as a junior to focus on softball.
She’s followed by younger sisters, Kaylee who’s a 2019 standout and one fellow Arizona club coach told me this morning that “she’s the real deal.” Kaylee, like her older sis, is also a basketball and volleyball player but looks to be a softball star at the next level.
BYU and Grand Canyon are showing serious interest and at the OnDeck Jamboree in Colorado she had several coaches following her. Kaylee is also a shortstop.
Then comes the baby of the group, Jocelyn, who may be the best of them all according to someone close to the family. She’s a C/1B/OF who won’t graduate until 2022 (wow), but is already playing up on the 12U level for the AZ Storm-Holtorf team which won Colorado Sparkler.
At one college camp, Jocelyn, who’s going into the sixth grade this year, played with high school players and, despite the age gap, really stood out.
MORE YOUNG ONES WE’RE HEARING ABOUT
Keep an eye and ear out for another player on the 12U AZ Storm-Holtorf team… we hear Landyn Bruce, a righty pitcher/infielder, is getting Pac 12 interest and has “one top program” on speed dial.
She’s also camped at Oklahoma, we hear, and she’s another young one already on major team’s radar.
Also, the Georgia Firecrackers have a 2012 player that’s blowing up in Lauren Flanders who one source says has “unbelievable speed.”
PRINCETON PICK-UP
What I love about my job is meeting great student-athletes who excel on and off the field, players like Megan Donahey, a 2016 outfielder who attends Xavier College Prep in Phoenix, Ariz.
At the Boulder IDT, she had an eventful week. Megan, who has a 4.2 GPA weighted with a pair of AP and honors classes, got an interesting message from her club coach Stephanie Ewing of Firecrackers-Ewing on Friday, July 3, 2015, when she said, “Megan, you’re about to get life-altering news.”
That turned out to be an invitation from Princeton to play for the Ivy League program.
Technically, Megan has “committed to the application process at Princeton,” meaning she isn’t getting a letter of intent like non-Ivy League conferences offer.
But what it does mean is that she will be going to one of the top academic universities in the country and she and her family couldn’t be happier.
So what will the 17-year-old study at Princeton? Unlike most kids her age, Megan knows exactly what she wants to do.
“I want to be a private fund equity manager,” she told FloSoftball today. “Or study business.”
GREAT RALPH WEEKLY STORIES
College coaches will tell privately you that a main reason they are at the 18U games is to “babysit” their top players. They are recruiting as there are still uncommitted elite athletes playing on the top teams, but many standout players are signed or committed.
Looking at the TC/USA Nationals board you’ll see a ton of college coaches are here and yesterday I had the chance to talk for a while with Ralph Weekly, co-head coach at Tennessee.
One of the best story tellers around, he was watching the So Cal Choppers and future Vol catcher Ally Shipman and there were other UT commits on the 12 field complex he no doubt was following.
Coach Weekly is a great story-teller and is fascinating to listen to… case in point, two stories he told from when he was one of the coaches for the 1996 U.S. Women’s Olympic team when he was then a coach at Tennessee-Chattanooga. I can’t do justice to how he tells the stories, but here are two that he told:
*** During the year leading up to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games, the first having softball, the women’s team travelled the country playing exhibitions and one in Texas was against a woman pitcher for the Katy Cruisers, a tall lanky lefty you may have heard of… Cat Osterman.
The 14-year-old Texan, swelled with Lone Star State confidence, predicted: “I’m going to beat the U.S. Women’s Team.”
Well, you can imagine how that was received by the Olympians themselves. When word got back to Dot Richardson and Lisa Fernandez, they grumbled, “We’re going to beat the (snot) out of that little kid.”
So the game comes and how do you think Cat does? After six innings, the score was 0-0 and the club coach pulled her knowing she couldn’t do much more.
And how did Lisa and Dot treat Cat after the game? They went up and shook her hand, knowing that the young kid had backed up her Texas-sized talk.
*** Dot Richardson got a medical degree and during one of the exhibition games in New York, a man fell off the bleachers to the ground a few rows below and the screaming of his wife alerted the players something was wrong in the stands.
Dot ran from her second base position and immediately started administering mouth-to-mouth and CPR to the striken man. When the EMTs showed up, she explained her medical background and asked to ride in the ambulance.
In full uniform, she accompanied the man in the ambulance, telling her coaches and teammates, “I’m a softball player but I made an oath as a doctor.”
Sadly, the man didn’t survive, but Dot Richardson showed a great dedication to helping others that those around her never forgot.
EC BULLETS DUO HAVING STRONG SUMMERS
Taylor “Taco” Greene, the 2018 Hot 100 catcher/infielder with Greg Schnute’s Bullets team, visited Georgia last weekend and we hear Arkansas could be in the picture too with the coaching change of popular assistant Boo Gillette going from ASU to the Razorbacks.
She’s also getting heavy interest from Louisville, Missouri, Georgia Tech, Purdue, Arizona State and North Carolina and her final choice will come from one of those programs.
I spoke with a source close to the team and Taco could be committing in the next month… stay tuned.
“I love playing at this level,” Taco said today on making the jump from 14U to 18U. “I’m learning a lot from my coaches and teammates, it’s a whole different ballgame.”
She shined at the So Cal A’s Invitational in June playing against many elite players and teams.
Finally, remember the name Katie Warrick… nicknamed “Nickles” because she wears 55 on her juersey, she’s been absolutely crushing the ball this summer after finishing her high school career with 51 career home runs at Forrest High (Chapel Hill, Tenn.) which won the State A championship.
She’s a 2015 headed to Tennessee-Martin.
Katie was an All-District MVP as a pitcher and defensive player. She also got the school’s Female Athlete of the Year and won All-Midstate and TSWA All-State honors. She graduated with a 3.93 GPA, 7th in her class.
By the way, Katie, home run totals were after missing a season with a leg injury, but she’s making up for lost time as she’s hitting 250 foot-plus bombs this summer.
Just remember… Katie Warrick. You heard it hear first!
UPDATED SCORES: