I was able to catch 3 of the 4 games at Davis Dismond and watched the 4th at home later.
First weekend against competition of that level isn't a good gauge for how the team is, but I was pleased by the apparent growth in some of the batting approaches. Enright looks like a completely different batter, despite the pitching. She clearly worked on her swing in the offseason. As a team they hit 9 home runs this weekend, and it probably wasn't until the 3rd or 4th weekend last year that they hit 9 home runs. It looks like one of the things the staff has been working on is applying pressure to the opposing defense on the base path. There were 12 stolen bases on the weekend and a few attempts to bait teams into making mistakes. A couple were successful and a couple not. Wooley was thrown out trying to steal third base in consecutive games. I don't think I saw that happen at all last year.
On defense they were solid. There were a couple plays made and a few times that plays could have been made that weren't. Third base needs to get better. She wasn't bad, but a starting 3b for a team competing for a WCWS appearance needs to be a playmaker. She did make a couple nice plays, including a beautiful stab of a liner in the 3rd game against Tulsa. I look forward to seeing her growth if she remains at 3rd. There was a shakeup a bit with Cannon moving to DP, Harper to 1st, Wiggins to 2nd and Powell at 3rd. I wasn't expecting that. Wooley remained at SS and she was nails as usual. We are fortunate to have a player like her. She had a tough time at the plate this weekend but I'm not worried about that at all.
In the circle, it's hard to say. There were a couple terrible innings. Kennedy was roughed up by Lehigh in one inning, but came out yesterday and absolutely dominated Tulsa. In the inning where she struggled, the umpire wasn't giving her the corners at all and you could see she was visibly upset.
Other than 2 innings, pitching pretty much dominated the competition, which is what was expected.
