Posted by WMC  5/26/2022 9:56 pm | #21 |
According to the Conference Iterative Strength Ratings from Boyd's World, The Atlantic 10 is ranked 26th of 32 leagues in D1 softball, with a strength of schedule of 25. Out of Conference record for the league was
153 - 196. GW was 12 - 9 and Fordham was 12 - 12. Between the 2 teams, they were 0 - 4 in postseason, although generally the games were close. Someone posted GW's RPI earlier but GW was 92. Fordham was 112. St Joe's 134. Out of 301 teams.
The top 5 leagues were the Power 5, and the next 7 were D1 football conferences, I think, although it's harder to keep track of what schools are in what conferences. The Big East was 13. Most (all but 1?) of the still active teams are from the Power 5, with UCF the outlier from the American Athletic, ranked 6th as a conference.
In the rankings just ahead of the A10 were the Patriot League and American East. ## 27 - 32 were Ivy, Horizon, MAAC, NEC, SWAC and MEAC.
I don't know how the league has done in the NCAA Tournament except UMass reached the College World Series (the final 8) 3 times under the late Elaine Sortino; with 23 A10 titles and 21 NCAA appearances. Program has struggled most years after 2013. Maybe alum Danelle Henderson, 3 time All American and Olympic Gold Medalist, can revive the program. It would give the league more creditability with at least 3 good programs.
Credit to GW for doing so well the past few years, and hope they can continue.
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Posted by WMC 6/13/2022 6:59 pm | #22 |
Sierra Lange was voted 3rd team All American by the National Fastpitch Coaches Ass'n. One of only 34 players on the 3 teams, just 8 from non-power 5 programs. Impressive, and deserved, accomplishment to cap her career.
Second Colonial to receive such an honor after Jenna Cone was elected to the 2nd team last year.
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Posted by GW0509 6/10/2025 11:34 am | #23 |
@GW_Softball
Chrissy Schoonmaker has stepped down as head coach to accept the same role at the University of Houston. A national search for the next Head Coach of GW softball will begin immediately.
https://gwsports.com/news/2025/6/10/softball-schoonmaker-named-head-coach-at-houston
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Posted by dmvpiranha 6/10/2025 12:37 pm | #24 |
GW0509 wrote:
@GW_Softball
Chrissy Schoonmaker has stepped down as head coach to accept the same role at the University of Houston. A national search for the next Head Coach of GW softball will begin immediately.
https://gwsports.com/news/2025/6/10/softball-schoonmaker-named-head-coach-at-houston
Not gonna lie, this feels a bit surprising. Schoonmaker won a regular season title with Winkler's recruits but failed to make the NCAAs in any of her three years here (not easy to do, but GW didn't even come close the last two years after the recent run of success). Thought a school like Houston could do better.
She was a pretty good recruiter (especially when it came to getting grad transfer pitchers) but I didn't think her adjustments over the course of the season were particularly good. It took her almost the entire year to insert Lew into the lineup when the bottom part of the order was hitting poorly for much of the season. Situational hitting is mainly on the players, but it was so bad that the coaching staff shouldn't get a pass for that. We made Dayton look like the best pitching team in the country during the A10 tournament, striking out like 20 times (at GW's home venue no less). Also lost to a 10 win Manhattan team earlier in the year. Wish her the best at her next stop. It could be a good hire for the Cougars, but she inherited a good situation and didn't really maintain the momentum.
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