Hello: Haylie Wagner (softball)
Here is another installment for all the softball junkies on this board that follow softball by the hour. We have another recruit to welcome to the Michigan Family. It is Haylie Wagner. As with the other softball “Hello” posts, Haylie’s is more of a player profile as she signed her LOI in November.
Haylie plays for El Modena High School (El Mo) in the Orange County High School league. This is the same league as Jordan Taylor’s Valencia High School. Haylie is 6’ 0” and is a clone of JT. Haylie has strong arm and has strong legs and best of all she is a left-handed pitcher.
Her summer team is the elite Courage out of Southern California. Courage has 6 players that have currently signed LOI to D1 schools. This team is an elite team that is consistently in the top tier in the ASA 18U Gold Division.
With the addition of Haylie, this will give us 4 pitchers on staff for 2012. These are Jr Stephanie Spiereman, Sr. Hilary Payne, and the two incoming Freshmen Sara Driesenga and Haylie Wagner.
Haylie doesn’t have blazing speed as her strike out numbers are low (about 2 Ks per game in 2011) compared to other pitchers we are accustomed to. But don’t let that cloud your judgment. Haylie has an awesome K to BB ratio of 8 to 1. This shows a tremendous amount of control and command of her pitches.
Her currents pitching statistics are 17 wins and 5 losses with 139 IP. She has given up 29 runs of which 22 are earned off 24 hits. She has an ERA of 1.11
Haylie is another rare pitcher that bats for herself, like incoming freshman RHP Sara Driesenga. Haylie is batting .571 with 15 RBIs, 8 runs scored, 2 doubles and 7 Home Runs. She has 0 stolen bases and 0 triples so I’m guessing base-running speed is not in her top 10 softball qualities.
I will continue to profile new players in the coming few days. I debated submitting this post with all the drama in ohio these days. But the Michigan Show must go on. The addition of Haylie certainly makes our future eve brighter. Welcome to Michigan Haylie. Its great….to be…..a Michigan Wolverine. Go Blue.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV7LfkayhTs
I'm not being sarcastic: are there softball junkies on this board?
several softball junkies here.
I'm not a junkie by any means, but I really enjoy hearing updates from the non-revenue sports.
Yes. I like softball.
MGoSoftball, you do the Michigan fanbase a service they cannot find anywhere else. And to everyone else- yes, softball matters.
Thank you for everything you do, I love it!
This is fun and easy since Hutch and the coaches continue to lock up "top-shelf" talent. The softball team is a model for what Hoke describes as "re-tool and re-load".
Hutch has sewn up the I-15 corridor which runs from San Diego up through Orange County. Of course the local schools (UCLA, USC, Stanford) recruit this area heavily too. These kids play ball all year long. They play the regular 40 games in the high school schedule and then 50+ games in summer and fall ball.
We are continuing to pull kids as we have one verbal commit for the 2013 class already. i will profile her in a week or so. I suspect we will get a few more verbal commits after school ball is completed. California is about a week ahead of MHSAA schedule.
Season stats if anyone is interested.
http://www.ocvarsity.com/sections/players-detail/?playerID=199125&roste…
Not to nitpick, but the 15 does not run thorugh Orange County. The 15 does start in San Diego, but goes inland and runs north through Escondido through Temecula to Corona and continues to go inland towards Barstow and if you keep going you end up in Las Vegas.
Like you said there seems to be lots of talent in the Orange County and Inland Empire area. I think almost all of UCLA's roster is homegrown talent. It is great to hear that Michigan is able to come into California and secure national prospects.
Are there other parts of the nation that continously put out D-1 talent like Southern California. I'd have to guess the southern states as well since they can play ball all year. I have no idea what softball recruiting looks like on the national level, but it seems like Southern California has lots of talent.
I'm pretty sure he's thinking of I-5, which goes from SD ll the way through Valencia, where Jordan Taylor is from. Easy mistake if you're out of the SoCal area.
Don't know how Hutch is pulling players from this area though. Seems like it would be hard to take them away from UCLA or USC, much less the PAC 10 as a whole.
Thanks for correcting me. That is what I intended to say was the I-5.
I am a S.E. Michigan native but I have been to Cali several times. I typically flew into SFO and made it as far south at Big Sur during my travels.
Most of these high school teams are as good as a JUCO team. These girls can really play some ball.
Is UCLA having a down year this year or is it that competitive in the Pac-10? Do you think that the B1G being weak right now hurts Michigan or do we have a big enough national pull that it doesn't really matter?
is that UCLA was the only game on the map for years. UCLA had the pick of the litter in the Southern California region. Then UCLA's little secret was discovered. Then it was a free for all. Now there are several of those girls heading out East. So its not that UCLA is bad, its just everyone else is getting better.
UCLA will always be a powerhouse in softball. Most girls would rather stay home then to go on the road,,,,to the snow no less. Most of these girls have never had a snow day in their life. I imagine that some want to come north and east because of the colder weather.
Michigan has the same amenities to offer softball players as we offer to football players. Hutch takes recruits to football games. Not many universities can match 110,000 fans on a Saturday afternoon, combined with arguably the best college in the nation.
You betcha!
If its Michigan and a sport, I am a junkie........
So yes, this is appreciated.
February 10th, 2012 at 9:30 PM ^
would someone downvote this thread? I mean this person puts in as much work or more than we get with other sports updates other than football. I personally look forward to his insights into the womens softball team, without him I would know maybe half as much as I do now. Thanks for another great thread.