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Hello Fastpitch aficionados,
 
Here is a bit more information about the all state lists. It’s intended to be non-judgemental and purely informational.
 
The 92 players hail from 36 of the conferences in the state.
 
Here is a list of conferences and the number of players from each
Wisconsin Valley – 9; Fox Valley Association – 7; Mississippi Valley – 6; Big Rivers – 5; Packerland – 5; Southeast – 4; Fox River Classic  - 4; Greater Metro – 4; Bay – 4; Cloverbelt West – 3; Coulee – 3; Little 10 – 3; Classic Eight – 3; Badger South – 3; Woodland – 2; Central Wisconsin Small – 2; Lumberjack – 2; Six Rivers West – 2; Trailways North – 2; Capitol North – 1; Lakeshore – 1; North Shore – 1; Lakeland West – 1;Eastern Valley – 1;Marawood – 1; Rock Valley – 1; Eastern Wisconsin – 1; Wisconsin Flyway – 1; Cloverbelt East – 1; Scenic Bluffs – 1
Midwest Classic/Classic – 1; Southern Lakes – 1
 
There are 8 Districts in the WFSCA structure and the number of selections that came from each district:
South Central – 9; North Central – 14; North East – 13; Valley/Lakeshore – 12; South West – 7; Western – 11; Northwest – 10; South East – 16
 
A regular reader of the Fastpitch Bulletins, Opening Pitch Blog and other WSN softball site pages sent the following e-mail to me:
Hi Bob,
I found your bulletin tonight full of great information.  I especially liked the listing of pitchers and how they were clocked for speed.  As was evident at State, speed isn't everything especially if you don't have movement on the ball. 
 
What I gleaned from the All-State selections was the weight that was put on the Team's win/loss records.  No pitcher selected had more than 6 Team losses according to the stat's on the WSN website.  Only 3 pitchers selected were on a team that was not listed in the top 15 of each Division Ranking on the WSN website.  I'd be curious to find out the weight if any that's put on the pitchers other stat's that they control.  That is, ERA, Fielding PCT, Innings pitched, Strike-outs, Walks Allowed, number of At-Bats, Batting AVG.
 
Thanks for all you did in keeping this new website interesting and up-to-date.  I looked forward each day of the season to reading your bulletins and Opening Pitch Blog. 
 
Have a Great Summer! 
Dave
 
Alyssa Roberts of Kenosha Bradford was named the Gatorade Player of the Year for Wisconsin on Tuesday of this week. Congratulations to her!
 
Have a great weekend!
Keep it Rising!Bob

Hello Again Everyone – It’s been an interesting day and a day filled with phone calls and e-mails from people across the state that took a look at the all state lists announced yesterday by the WFSCA.

The All State Selection meeting was Sunday in Stevens Point, there nearly all of the District Reps met and hammered out the lists.

As I looked at the lists my first thought was that there seemed to be about half as many kids on the lists as there have been in the past. I figured the District reps must have chosen to reduce the number of players by about half. I was apparently correct in that assumption as I talked with one of the reps this afternoon.

I decided to print out the list and take a close look at it. I decided to count how many players from each District were on the list and how many of those players are from Division 1, Division 2, Division 3 and Division 4 schools.

[b]Here is the data:[/b]
There are 92 players on the lists.
Of the 92 players – 52 are from Division 1 schools which is 52.5%
Of the 92 players – 15 are from Division 2 schools which is 16.3%
Of the 92 players – 16 are from Division 3 schools which is 17.3%
Of the 92 players – 9 are from Division 4 schools which is 9.7%
Of the 52 players from Division 1, 6 are from SPASH which is 11.5% and 6 of 92 is 6%
In 2007 there were 192 players listed on the all state lists.

Here is a little more information on the pitchers on the list as well as some that are not that we pionted my radar at this spring. These are simply facts gleaned from sitting behind home plate at the state tournament and other games such as the all star games and other regular season, regional and sectional games and recording the data.
Beth Spoehr – Appleton East – 60-62 mph top speeds, mostly right around 58-59
Lexi Johnson – Madison Memorial – 54-56 mph top speeds, mostly right in that range
Stacey Tuskowski – SPASH – 55-57 mph and mostly in that range
Ashely Meinen – McDonell – 56 mph top speed, consistently at 55 mph
Bev Nordin – Verona – 52-54 mph consistently at state tourney
Cherise Waltz – Oakfield – 55-56 mph consistently
Courtney Wautier – Southern Door – 59-61 mph tops, 58 consistently
Laci Pustina – Highland – 54-55 mph consistently
Lauren Beres – Eisenhower – 60-61 mph – consistently threw 58 mph
Kayla Schlegel – Eisenhower – 60-61 mph – consistently threw 58 mph
Kesley Walasek – Park Falls – 58-61 mph with consistent rise ball at 57 mph –
Michelle Smith – Catholic Central – 56-58 mph
Jeni Luzinski – Thorp – 55-56 mph – mostly right around 54-55
Jordan Martin – Aquinas – 52 mph consistently
Carissa Neina[font=arial][size=2]s[/size][/font]– Sevastopol – 54 mph – mixed things superbly between 51-54
Renee Schuttler – Monroe – 57 mph –
Rice Lake – Alyssa Anderson – 52 mph 
[font=arial][size=2]Jami Kessenich[/size][/font] – Arrowhead – 52 mph
Ashley Wagner – Middleton – 56-58 mph
Bekah Rennicke – Homestead – 52 mph
Eryn Edgerton – Wausau West – 55 mph
Allison Stanke – Oak Creek – 51 mph
Alyssa Koch - Racine Case - 58-59 mph
Alyssa Roberts - Kenosha Bradford - 57-59 mph
Rachel Bublitz - Columbus - 55-56 mph
Lydia Free - Luther Prep - 56-57 mph
Nichole Nolan - Oakfield - 55-56 mph
Michelle Friedel - Portage - 54-57 mph
Michelle Mueller - LaCrosse Logan - 61-62 mph
Maddy Werner - Randolph - 53-54 mph
Tieraney Planasch - Dodgleland - 59-61 mph
Chelsea Hensler - Waterloo - 54-55

All the speeds were done with my Decatur Electronic ProSpeed DSP radar gun tuned perfectly at 77 mph. That radar gun is a $2000 piece of equipment that I have been using for many years. I periodically stand snext to those police department radar gun trailers and compare speeds. They are always the same or within one mile per hour of each other. My radar gun is accurate.

The above speed information is informational in nature and not meant to be judgemental in any way. It does show however that, for the most part, Division 1 pitchers are not any faster than D-2s, D-3s or D-4s.

It’s high and tight! 
 
Hello Everyone – It was great to be at the state tournament and at the all star games within the past week. It gave me a chance to chat with many of you and to watch some good games and some excellent players.
 
The high school season is officially over now and it’s time to start reflecting on what transpired during the past year and what the possibilities are for the future.
 
My agreement with the Wisconsin Sports Network was a noteworthy one and a move that I contemplated for a while. I knew that it would be tough to get the word out to many people that things were a bit different and I also knew that, in fastpitch softball in this state, publicity and notoriety for players is a tough thing in many areas.
 
Simply stated, there are just too many schools whose coaches fail to get involved with that aspect of being a coach. In the end their players are the ones who suffer.
 
I’m sure the WFSCA all state lists that are now posted on that site will raise many, many conversations across the Badger State and many of the gripes will come from parents of players whose coaches simply fail in the area of publicity, promotion and notoriety.
Take a look at the all state teams. They are posted on the wfsca.org website and there is also a link to the page on the WSN site’s Opening Pitch Blog that I write. There are some excellent, excellent players on all those lists and in my humble opinion there’s not much, if any difference between a kid who is listed on the first team and a kid who is listed as an honorable mention player. To me, they are all simply all-state players.
 
Coaches and umpires who still don’t understand the DP/Flex rule and how it can be used to benefit a team could take some lessons from New Berlin Eisenhower’s great coach, Jeff Setz. We were impressed with what he was doing with the DP/Flex rule and using it to directly win a state championship. It was Eisenhower’s first state title in six trips.
 
I thought the state tournament featured a lot of defensive lapses. Errant throws, dropped throws, dropped balls that seemed like “cans of corn” to the fans were all a part of what we saw take place down there. Most of those lapses cost that team a victory.
 
A parent once told me that “errors are part of the game” and that I should accept that. My answer was the same one I used on a basketball player who told me that “basketball is a game made from turnovers.” My answer was, “errors certainly are a part of softball and the team that loses normally commits more errors than the team that wins!”
People forget quickly that an error occurred when the team gets out of an inning without yielding a run. However, that base runner determines the part of the batting order that opens the next half inning. There is a reason that coaches put their better batters at the top half of the order rather than the bottom half. When an error occurs, that’s one inning sooner for the leadoff batter to step into the batter’s box and the entire game is different than it would have been if that error the inning before had not occurred.
 
Great teams seldom give the other team a chance to steal a victory from the jaws of defeat. Great teams combine pitching, defense and offensive success.
 
Another thing I liked this year at Goodman Diamond was the decreased number of campfire songs emanating from the dugouts. I’m old school and I like diamond chatter as I grew up with it. 
 
Congratulations to all the teams that advanced to the state tournament and congratulations to the four state champions and to the state runner-up in each division of play. To the coaches who won the title, those that lost in the championship game or lost in an earlier round – I know the feeling of all three situations – I’ve been there.
 
Keep checking the site as I will try to keep bulletins flowing and will try to get other interesting information to you.
 
Have a great day and a great summer.
Keep it Rising!
Bob