M SB Starts the 2012 Season

Submitted by MGoSoftball on

Well, the days are getting shorter, the kids are all back into school, the air is crisp and the colors are starting to change.  That means two things: Football and Softball.

The M Softball team began its quest for a National Title this past weekend by playing in a Fall Ball Tourney in Traverse City.  For those who dont follow SB, Fall-Ball is an opportunity to get a look at your kids in real time action.  Its awesome to practice but Fall-Ball is where all the sins are revealed.

It also gets the Freshmen, (RHP Sara Driesenga, LHP Haylie Wagner and C Lauren Sweet) an opportunity to show the coaches what they can do and hopefully earn some playing time in the spring.

Fall-Ball lays the foundation for the winter practices.  Every element of a batters swing will be analyzed over the next few days.  This will spring board into the practice sessions. 

This is our only time to improve.  The warm weather teams have a HUGE advantage because they can play ball all winter.  We dont have that luxury because we cant travel because of class.

Michigan played ND, WMU, CMU and SVSU in a round robin format.  We picked up a 5-0 win vs WMU, 8-0 win vs SVSU and a 6-1 win over CMU.  Traverse City is wonderful this time of year and I planned on going up there to watch the girls.  However, I decided at the last minute to entertain some family at the Big House against EMU, so I dont have box scores yet.

Congrats to all the ladies and keep up the hard work.

 

MGoBoard
Other
carol hutchins

acnumber1

September 19th, 2011 at 10:37 PM ^

SB can play actual games vs other schools in the fall, winter (climate permitting) and spring...while football is strictly limited in terms of practice hours, not to mention stretching minutes (as we all know all too well).

Are there any NCAA imposed limitations on how much time SB teams can practice/how many games they can play?   Just curious.

How about any other non-revenue, or at least non-BIG-revenue, sports?  

Joined: 10/19/2009

MGoPoints: 18817

Alton

September 19th, 2011 at 11:29 PM ^

This is the equivalent of spring football practice, except that in softball, teams are allowed to play 8 exhibition games during the non-championship season.  Every day of play or practice in the fall means 1 day later starting practice up again in January or February.  These fall games are exhibition games.

The limit to a softball season is 132 days of play or practice, and every day in the fall used for games or practices takes a day away from the start of winter practices, so teams will generally use only 3 weeks or so for "fall ball".

I don't think many other team sports have a separate exhibition season of competition--I know baseball and lacrosse do not, and those are the only other team spring sports.  Golf and tennis generally do have fall seasons in addition to the spring season.

Joined: 07/05/2008

MGoPoints: 13312