Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're celebrating National Girls and Women in Sports Day by walking into our neighborhood sports bar and asking every bro we encounter a women's sports question we know they can answer.
Feels good to flip the script every once in a while.
It's Wednesday, February fifth, and on today's show, we'll be nixing the Need to Know and bringing you No Dumb Questions Softball Edition with journalist, reporter, and editor Rhiannon Potke ahead of the twenty twenty five college softball season, which begins tomorrow. We talked about what makes the sports so unique, perennial powerhouse programs, and of course the stars, stakes, stats and stories that you need to know.
That chat's coming up right after this joining us now.
She's a journalist for multiple outlets, including d one sooftball dot com, the leading source for college softball coverage and scores. She's the founder of Goods for Greatness, and nonprofit that provides sports equipment to low income children across the country, and she's one of those.
Mourning people you hear about. It's Rhiannon pot Key. What's up, Rhannon, Hey, Sarah?
How are you doing. Thanks for having me on.
I mean, I'd like to think I'm doing better than you because I didn't wake up at four point thirty in the morning, But that's your thing.
So I am a morning person. It's you know, to be in this profession as a sports writer and be a morning person is probably the worst possible thing in life. But I just can't. I mean, if I'm sleeping until six, then that's a long long sleep.
In for me, which is crazy.
But it's no thank you.
My genetics is blame my parents. I'm blaming my parents for that.
Well, thanks for taking the time to join us and tackling the very worthy task of answering all of our very not dumb questions about college softball in the upcoming season. We probably have some listeners that watch a lot of college softball, even more likely some that just catch up on the World Series, and maybe some that are new to it. So let's make sure everyone who's curious about softball earns what they need to know to dive in, even if it's for the first time.
So this is college softball, no dumb questions.
Addition, historically, what are some of the top programs in the women's softball world maybe of all time and then maybe just for the last couple of years.
Yeah, of all time. You got to go back to UCLA and Arizona. They used to you know, go back and forth. Huge rivals. Still I don't know if they will still be rivals given the changes in conference re alignment, but those two historically were, you know, always winning the titles. More recently we've seen a little variety. But last four years and six of the last eight, Oklahoma has become the dominant program. But there is a lot more variety than there used to be. We had Florida State win titles.
We've had the SEC build up programs like Alabama and Tennessee, and so there's a lot of legacy programs. But I think everyone knows that Oklahoma is kind of the big program now, but in the heyday it was Ucla.
Arizona that we're kind of winning most of the titles.
Why do you love college softball so much?
I love it because there's just it's softball, such a faster paced game, and then baseball. For me, the innings are quicker, there's more variety. I mean, you get some slapping, you get some home runs, you get a lot of variety with that. The teams are very they have fun stories. There's a lot of cheering in the dugout, which you
don't get much of baseball. I mean I can be honestly like in my maybe run an air and go to the kitchen and have a game on and know who's playing just because of the cheers I hear from the dugout, because every school is kind of distinctive and
they all have their own separate cheers. It's just, you know, and like a lot of women's sports, the players and the coaches that are a lot more approachable and they seem more down to earth a little bit, and they're willing to kind of like want media attention and share their stories. And it's just fun. I mean, I think the main word. Whenever I go to a game, I feel like it's a lot of fun and a lot of action.
How were you first introduced to softball?
I grew up playing softball.
I mean I started in Little league baseball and then I eventually like, everyone's like, you're a girl, go to softball, So I did. I grew up playing it for about twelve thirteen years. So I grew up in southern California playing it pretty high level travel, so that kind of.
Got me addicted.
And then I you know, I was always watching softball whenever I could, although back in the day that wasn't you know, as accessible, but go into games and stuff, so it's always been in my blood.
I guess, Yeah, what important thing should fans know about what went down last season in college softball?
Yeah, well as we kind of, I said, Oklahoma when it's fourth straight national title with one of the best senior classes in the history of the sport. They won a title every year, you really can't do better than that. It's pretty pretty amazing, you know. Last year OU Texas, Oklahoma State, UCLA, Stanford, Florida, Alabama, and Duke all made the women's College World Series.
Duke was kind of a cool story. Is the first time in the history of the program.
The program started in twenty eighteen, and it's a fast rise underhead coach Mercy Young, And it was a littally even more compelling because her husband the previous year had suffered a major heart attack that caused a lot of serious health issues and he wasn't there to see it that year, and like so they almost made it the year before, but if they had, he would have been
having that heart attack at that time. So it was almost kind of like this, you know, but they made it back this into last year and that was a really cool, cool breakthrough for that program.
So that was fun to watch.
Let's get into things that might be unexpected. Are there any major rule differences, conference re alignments changes that we should be aware of heading.
In We talk about Oklahoma, Well, the SEC is adding Oklahoma and Texas, and the SEC already gets in pretty much every single team to the tournament every year, maybe just one misses. So you add those two juggernaut programs and that conference is going to be crazy good.
And then you got the other moves.
Sadly, the PAC twelve was a softball juggernaut, and you know, we're still mourning the loss of the PAC twelve. I know it's kind of going to be back in name only, so Big ten adding UCLA and some of those road trips in Washington and Oregon, and the Big twelve with Arizona Arizona State, and then you get calan Stan from
the ACC. So it's going to be interesting to see some of those different matchups you don't see although in softball you get a lot more teams playing each other because the amount of games you got, like sixty seventy games some teams play, so you do see more interconference map I mean, like you know, cross conference matchups more often. But it'll be cool to see three game series like that.
Yeah, Okay, let's get into my patented four s's the stars stake stats and stories. Who are a couple players our listeners can follow on social maybe expect see in a lot of highlight clips and at the top of the stats.
Yeah, let's start with probably the best pitcher in the game, Najerie Kennedy Naja Candy for some people that know her well. She transferred to Texas Tech from Stanford, which was a huge story because she signed an nil deal that was reportedly to be about a million for softball.
That's huge.
So that was a huge move in the offseason. So she's what you got to start with. You have a picture at Tennessee named Carlin Pickens, who.
Was a really, really good pitcher.
She's wanted to watch Jordi ball from Nebraska. I'm sure some people if they tuned into Oklahoma a few years ago, she was helping lead them to the title. She transferred to Nebraska and then tore her ACL about three or four games into the season. So she's going to be back for Nebraska this season, but kind of the first time we've seen her there. Catcher Reese Atwood for Florida
had a breakout season last year and she's back. And then one at Florida catcher Jocelyn Ericson, she had a great season SEC Player of the Year last year and she's one to watch too.
And who are some dark horse teams?
Are there any that maybe could be, you know, making a run in trying to steal a top spot.
It's interesting because there's a lot of quality mid major programs in softball. I think if I was to say a dark horse, which is not really I mean with Jordi Ball and the team, but I think Nebraska is going to be one to watch just because they've got a lot of transfers in and they have Jordi Ball back, so that could be one that can make a World Series run.
That's kind of a dark horse sleeper to get to the World Series.
Cool. Okay, let's talk stakes.
How important is every game in a college softball season, Like when it comes to making the tournament or being a good team. Is it a big deal if you lose a game or how many are there?
Yeah, not every game is as important as it would be for like college football or college basketball, because there are more, Like I said, there's more than fifty games in a season, So you have some midway call mid weeks where you'll throw out some pitchers who maybe aren't on weekend starters, and some teams can trip up there and lose some of those games.
So there's not as much worry about that.
It's really conference play where you know you have the three game series each weekend, So most coaches would be satisfied to win two of those games and win the series each weekend.
Obviously they love to sweep.
But it's really kind of just about who you beat and when you beat them, and usually most of these major conferences you get plenty of chances. I think for the mid majors it's really important they take advantage of the opportunities against the bigger opponents for the RPI's sake. So maybe some games matter more to them than some of the conference games. But yeah, it's not quite as important as it would be in like football, where you only get you know, fourteen chances. This is you know,
one chance each week. So college has a college offer's got a lot of games.
Explain to us the RPI, Well.
It's ratings percentage index, which is very controversial in softball. Most people don't like it because it's you know, depending on who you play, where you play them. You know, if you play a team that has an IRPI, you keep it. Even if you lose, you can jump in the RPI. So there's no perfect formula. As we said, almost all sports we see that, but that's the one that the tournament committee uses the most.
So at the end of the season, it's about both your record and also the eye test or how a committee views you as a team, which is why you say it doesn't quite matter as much necessarily all the losses. It's more that you're beating the good teams and the teams that have a high RPI exactly.
I mean, there's and it's kind of built in obviously with some of the strong conferences like the SEC. That's why a lot of their teams get in because they're playing every weekend teams that are very good.
And high in the RPI.
So it kind of you know that's kind of baked in and there is some eye test, but I think the committee as they usually just go straight RPI a lot more, and I think a lot of people don't really like that as much sometimes, but that's just kind of the way it is when you have this many teams contending for spots in the tournament.
We got to take a quick break when we come back. More college softball with Briann and pot Key. Okay, let's talk stats. What's a great stat line for a hitter in the college game.
I would say if you get two or more hits in a game and a few runs or maybe a few RBIs you know. The hitting is in softballs, which really gotten better these past few years. The offense has increased way more than it used to be when you pretty much every game was one zero, two to one, one zero, two to one. So I think if you get two or more hits driving a few runs, you know, that's a pretty solid stat line.
What about a picture.
I think now for a picture, limiting teams to two runs or less, you know, maybe eight strikeouts or more and zero to one walks would be good. Like I said, the offense is really increased, so it's you can't The pitchers aren't going to be like shutouts every game like it used to be. And softball's kind of developed the baseball approach of by committee. That's been a really really
new thing these last five years. There's no you'll still have your ass that go the distance, but they're doing a lot more mixing and matching than they've ever done in the sport. So that's a really really kind of a new thing this sport, and I think it's made it fun. You even have some closers in softball which you never used to see.
Why do you think that's happening?
I think because the hitting is in it.
The video has improved so much, and people have so much more stats and information on pitchers that you know you can be and you have you know, if you have a bigger staff, you can throw a change of pace. And an interesting thing about softball is if you take a picture out, you can put them back in, so you don't like when you pull them, they don't have to sit the whole game.
You can rein hurt them again. So sometimes you just do it for a particular hitter or like a part in the lineup or something.
And I think it's just the more variety that the more pitches that people see from different arms, different angles, different spins, it really impacts the hitter. So coaches know that and now they're going with it.
Are there any rules to how long a pitcher has to be in once they're inserted? Can they come in for just one batter and come back out?
Yes they can't. Yeah, just one batter, come back out.
Yeah, it's that's wild.
So like if you just get torched by a particular hitter as a pitcher, you can just sub out and be like, I'm good, I don't really want to get rocked by that gal again. We'll send someone else into facer and I'll come back in possibly.
Yeah, you can only come back in out limited times. Like you can't keep doing that every time that picture that the hitter comes up.
But yeah, you conceivably do that. It's fun. It's kind of makes it a little bit more of a chess match, you know. Yeah.
It's interesting because we had Kat Osterman on the show to preview the ausl Athletes Unlimited Softball League, and she still holds a billion d records. Now obviously that's because she's unbelievable, but to your point, we're just also not seeing pictures go the distance as often and throw as many innings.
Huh, yeah, exactly.
There's there's you know, you used to have it pretty much. You threw you to start a picture and she would go the full seven if she was succeeding, or but nowadays only even pull play. They'll think, you know, hey, let's rest her a little bit for the stretch run,
or we don't want to. So it is there's I think you're going to see a lot of different stats that maybe you know, and Monica Abbott and kat Austraman have tremendous like I don't think if you put people seven innings they would do this, But now I think it's not going to be quite as easy to do that. Or you're going to see different types of stats. So judging things for like awards and things have to be kind of, you know, a little different than they.
Used to be.
Yeah, and a lot more strategy, feels like for coaches than as opposed to just like ride the ace. You've got a little bit more thinking about who faces who.
I let's talk to stories.
Any players, coaches, teams that have a particularly compelling story heading into the season, could be come back from ury, could be uh that they're close to break in a record or switch schools.
Yeah, I think we just gus a few of them earlier. With Naja Kennedy going from Stanford to Texas Tech. That was the biggest story in the offseason. And they've got a new coach, Jerry Glasgow, who's he was at Louisiana and now he's there and he's all in. He's one that likes to get transfers in there and kind of quickly transform programs. So we'll see if they can, We'll see how high they can go. And then, like I said, Jordy Ball coming back from injury is going to be
one to watch. She's a great story, you know, giving her immense success, and she hits and pitches, so she's a huge dynamic add to that lineup. So I think those are the two ones that everyone's going to be looking at. I think, oh, you they're still top five program, but just see who can take that, you know, who can replace those stars and become the stars of the Sooners for the next generation.
How rare is it in softball to pitch and hit?
It's it's it's not as rare as it as it used to be. I mean, you still I think a lot of kids they do it in high school, but for some reason, once they get to college, a lot of coaches don't want to give them the pressure of doing both.
But then there's some that love to do both.
I've noticed the past few years and more are allowing them to, like some of the top aces two hit, which I think is great. Some love to so I think that's kind of an attraction for them. But I would say it's you know, it's like fifty to fifty. You get some that love love it, and it really depends on what kind of you know, what coach you go to, and how they utilize pictures.
And tough to do it at the highest level on both sides, I presume.
Yes, exactly, it is hard. I mean you you know, if you can find one that can hit against the great stuff like well as they can throw it, you're definitely gonna do it. And it saves you a spot in the lineup too. You don't have to use the DP, so there's some strategy in it too to keep that, you know, the picture in the lineup without having.
To put in another player.
Tell us about the DP designated player.
Yeah, well you can.
That's a spot where you can insert someone in the lineup. If you have like a week hitter who's a good defender or something, you can put a DP in there. And like I said, most times that could be for the picture because the pictures. But if you have a great picture who can hit, then you can. That's a strategy where you can utilize someone else who's a weaker hitter and put them in the field somewhere it's a great defender and then have someone come in and you know, hit the crap out of the ball.
So let's start with the stars, starting with the favorite teams to win it all. It sounds like Oklahoma's going to be the favorite again right running four straight.
Actually, Oklahoma will be up there, but I think the favorites to win it all are probably mostly Florida and Texas are the two that you're seeing a lot of because Oklahoma lost so many players from last year. I think people still realize they're going to be up there and contending. But I think Florida and Texas will be ones that maybe you have at the top of the
rankings to start the season. Whether that you know continues at the end, we'll see and I think UCLA and Oklahoma State or two that also are going to be in the running there as well.
Is it the first time it's felt a little bit more open with all those players graduating from Oklahoma?
I think the first time in the like the last four years.
Yes, I definitely believe that, because they just said that class was so sensational, and then plus you had the COVID year, so you had some coming back that were fifth years, so they Oklahoma was stacked and they still are. They still have tons of talent, but it does feel more wide open than it was the last four years.
So we know that Patty Gasso, who is the head coach at Oklahoma, is literally like a legend in the game, knowing what you know about her.
Is this like an exciting season for her?
The idea that people are doubting them, that a bunch of players would graduate and they wouldn't be a favorite.
For sure, Patty loves and she loves coaching, and I know not that she didn't have to coach those other players, but as she loves developing players and developing.
You know, people into what they are.
So I think she's gonna love this season and get kind of reinvigorated and having some young talent to kind of mold and she does it. It's you know, I guess doubted quote unquote being like five instead of number one is. But you know, you'll take the chip anywhere you can get it. So I think she'll love that.
But I do think the part she'll really love is just the development aspects and having to kind of, you know, teach them what much of the game again, as opposed to having such veterans that you know, you don't necessarily have to teach as much as you did.
Yeah, okay, two more for you. A softball back in the Olympics in twenty twenty eight. Will that have any sort of trickled down effects on college programs?
You think?
I think it will, Yeah, because many of the players that you're watching now may have a chance to make that national team. I mean it's because it's still you know, three years away, and some of the top seniors juniors may be able to make it, depending on who's still around or hiring or not. And you know, the Olympics always brings a spotlight to the sport, so it always ends up like you know, if people, oh I see in the Olympics, maybe I'll either start playing softball or
else watching college softball if they haven't already. And the cool thing is a lot of them know the stars if they are because most of the college stars do play for the Olympics, and you know, some of the coaching staff too could be as usually made up of college coaches, so that there's there's usually you know, a
little trickle down. The only thing about the softball being the Olympics that's kind of a bummer is it's going to be as much as I love Oklahoma City and like it's a great venue, having to be play there and not getting the full Olympic experience around the other Olympic athletes I think.
Is yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, they won't be able to be in LA around and like in the you know you just fraternizing with other athletes. I think that's kind of a bummer for just you know, they'll still get the the other softball players, but but yeah, I think it'll have a trickle down effect to college and and some like I said, some of the players you're watching now may be on those teams. So it's pretty good primer to get used to who you might see then.
Which brings me to my final question, which relates to somehow Oklahoma even getting home field in the Olympics, which is unrelated to college softball. But there are people who respect that Oklahoma's facilities are incredible. They are by far the best place to play the World Series, and that means that they get home field every single year. How much of a benefit is that and is there a real argument to having it move.
There's no question it's a little. It's a benefit in terms of the fans. Can you know, travel easier and everything, and it's it's you know, comfortable for them. But you know, I don't think it's as decided as some people like to make it out to be. I think there's I think it's a great venue. I think you know, you have to have it somewhere. I mean, Omaha's not winning every baseball title. I mean Creighton's not winning every baseball title. They're in their own backyard. You still got to be
good to get there. It's not really a factor there. And the biggest question there is where else are you going to play that has a facility that you can build with the amount of money that'll have space and people to do it. If someone wants to spend a few billion dollars million dollars to build a whole facility with the infrastructure, that's great, they'll play it somewhere else.
But until that's done, I really did the complaining is kind of you know, it's I think it's just a coincidence that's become like now it's taken a life of its own. And I think if it was, you know, played anywhere else, I don't know if like, if there was a good team there, you would be saying the same thing.
But and for now, it does make for a really cool experience.
Everyone knows what they're getting, everyone knows where to go, where it'll be, when it'll be, and how they can go watch one of the great things in college sports, which is the women's softball College World Series. I mean it is just one of the highest rated, one of the highest viewed, and attendance in the scene around it is always such fun. All right, I feel like I know more, I'm more prepared. I'm ready to dive into
college softball. So thanks so much for giving us some time, Rannon my pleasure.
I appreciate you having me on.
Thanks so much to Rihanna for joining us.
We got to take another break, be right back, Welcome back, slices.
We love you're listening, but we want to get you in the game every day too, So here's our good game play of the day.
You know what time it is.
Choose your fighter, and by that I mean choose the program you'll be rooting for this college softball season. The twenty twenty five campaign starts tomorrow, so decide who you're rocking with and get in on the trash talk in action if you feel so inclined. We'd love to hear from you, so hit us up on email Good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com or leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two oh four fifty seventy.
Thanks for listening, See you tomorrow.
Good game, Rhannon, Good game, College soft Bebes?
Wait what college softbab? No? Few College soft Bebes.
Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iheartwomen's sports production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network, our producers are Alex Azzie and Misha Jones. Our executive producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder. Our editors are Emily Rutter, Britney Martinez and Grace Lynch.
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