Alabama has been blessed over the past years with some very good softball teams but still came up short of the big prize until last year. Last years team was an exceptional team that included lots of leadership from multiple players on the team. When I say leadership, I'm not talking about someone that likes to lead the cheers in the dugout. I'm talking about someone that the other players respect and trust and can go to them with their problems, regardless of whether their problems may be personal or softball related.

Bama started this year off in great fashion and winning was easy for them. They were traveling a lot and playing a very busy schedule, but a very busy schedule can sometimes backfire on you. Traveling and playing in some of the nastiest weather that I've seen in some years can really test your will to play at the top of your game. The bad weather wasn't just on the road games it was at home as well. Somehow I think that some of the players experienced some fatigue from this and their game began to suffer.

About midway through the season I saw a change in Jackie Traina. Jackie had been pitching great and her batting was the icing on the cake for her game performances. But all at once she started to struggle with her pitching, something that she had not experienced in her career at Alabama. Then her batting began to struggle and she lost some games that she would have normally won. This is when the team, as a whole, began to react to Jackie's failures, this was something that they were not used to seeing. Jackie had been pretty much invincible in her career at Bama but was now gettting knocked around as an average pitcher. This is when Bama needed someone on the team to pick up where Jackie had left off and become a hero of sort, someone that could rally the team with a great pitching performance or getting game winning hits in the last inning but none of this happened.

Slowly the team began to come apart at the seams. The conference schedule was much tougher than their non-conference games and every team that Bama played wanted to beat the National Champions. It seemed that when the team would lose it was due to so many mental mistakes, whether it was pitching, hitting, running the bases, or playing defense. They were making mistakes that good teams don't make and they were paying a big price for the mistakes, losing games.

Again I'll go back to what Bama needed to stop this downward spiral, it was  leadership. With Jackie Traina being unable to be relied on to win almost every game that she pitched, Bama had no one else who could be that leader that all of the players could depend on to win the big games. She was J-Train, the best player in the country. She could beat you with her bat or her pitching and she was the hero and leader of this team.

I doubt that Bama makes it to a Super Regional this year unless some things happen with this team. They have the players that are fully capable of winning another championship this year, when they play the way they are capable of playing. Can Jackie Traina right this ship, she can if she can pitch the way we all have seen her pitch in the past, but Jackie needs some help from her teammates. They need to become the leader of this team right now to help her get out of this nasty slump. There are some very good players on this team and right now they've got to become more than players, they've got to become those leaders and pick up the slack for their fallen hero and get her going again.

I've got my fingers crossed as the SEC tournament begins this week, just maybe some good things will happen for the team. ROLL TIDE!!

   

Another year, another trip to the NCAA Championships for the Tide Gymnastic team. This is our 31st year in a row to advance to the finals.

We blew away the competition with a 197.400. The next closest team was 196.400.


Click here for link

There's a lot of experimentation going on with the team so the stats can be pretty deceiving. Christian and Cyrus Jones were both playing DB and both looked like they could develop there. CNS said that only one of them would make the move because of what they bring for the offense. Henry is everything they say he is, he didn't look like a freshman learning the playbook. I also thought that Bateman and del Rio has some promise, they looked pretty comfortable at QB and both have good arms. it was good to see all the injured back on the field, they semed to pick up where they had left off.

There is so much talent on the field, the level of competition at all the positions looks to be very good. One of the better highlights of the day was the 54 yd fg by the freshman kicker Griffith, it landed in the bleachers. Now he duffed his first two tries at it but this young man has a powerful leg and he needs to work  on his consistency. He could have been a little nervous, that's a long field goal.

The team worked on about every phase of the game and I thought they looked decent for no more practices than they have had but CNS had different thoughts. One player was removed from practice, I won't call any names. Per CNS it was because of the lack of productive effort. CNS used the blinking light analogy of the player and you don't ever want to be the blinking light. I did see one injury, Trey Depreist, it might be bad enough to end his spring practice. It was his foot or ankle.

ADay should be fun to watch this year with all of the young talent and I hope all of you can make it to the game.RTR!!

@CecilHurt Mal Moore, long-time University of Alabama athletics director, died this morning in Durham, N.C., at the age of 73.

God bless you, Coach.

I know it is still early in the season and we have not played the best SEC teams yet but I am very surprised how much our team has improved since last year.

We are hitting .260 as a team. We have some very good freshman in the lineup but our best hitters were with us last year. Ben Moore .310, Brett Booth .310, Austen Smith .301 and Kenny Roberts .286. One of my concerns with CMG last year was I could not see improvement as the season went on. Last years players are better this year and the freshman are getting better. I like what I see from our offense.

Defense we look very good. Brett Booth has really matured behind the plate. He is holding runners on 1st base this year. He has already throw out more baserunners than our team did all last year. The freshman trio of White (SS), Overstreet (2B) and Salem (CF) make us very good up the middle. We have a good double play combination and a guy who covers a lot of ground in center field. We have made 31 errors in 27 games. Compare that to 46 errors by our opponents. We are also making tough plays that were hits last year.

Pitching has been solid. I thought going into the year pitching would be our strength. So far we have a good weekend rotation of Sullivan, Keller and Turnbull. Castillo has been good as a closer. We have decent middle relief. We have a team ERA of 3.16. Compare that to our opponents 4.22.

It is a long season and we have a long way to go but  I like what I see from this team. CMG was on the hot seat this year. So far he and his staff are doing a good job.

This photo has been circulating, showing just how big Derrick Henry is, standing in front of Jalston Fowler, who is 6'1" and 242 lbs.  Henry makes him look small, although he is only about 2 inches taller -- it looks like he has added some weight since his stats came out.

Good article for reading. Now, if Notre Dame is going to practice with a bitter taste in their mouth for Alabama, all I can say is win all your games again and come meet Alabama again, and this time they will slap that bitter taste out of your mouth. maybe that will help. RTR!