on our talent for next year. You can do very well with 2 good pitchers and 3 or 4 backups if you are willing to pull a pitcher immediately. That literally means once you get two hits after she goes through the order one time or at any inning if she gives up more than a run.

You may only need one inning or one out from a particular pitcher which means she can throw all her stuff and not worry about facing the whole line up. Think of it like baseball. Starting pitcher gets you to 5, middle reliever gets you to 7 closer gets 8/9 or sometimes just 8 and another pitcher 9. Softball is headed that way.

Thomas has gone to offering earlier yet he has missed on a number of pitchers. Just a couple ex: Peyton St George was not offered at Duke until 2015 (Sophomore I think) and she is one of the best pitchers in VA. Charlotte Mitchell just recently got offered by JMU over the summer and I think she is just now a 10th grader. In my opinion, those are two very big misses. I have heard Peyton had a family member that knew the Duke coach so that could have played a role.

I agree with you on age limits. Many of these girls who look like world beaters in 8th grade do not pan out. They get tired of playing or the rest of the world catches up with them. Meanwhile you fill your roster and can't take the late bloomer (in this case 10th grader). I would like to see 10th grade be the cutoff but the genie is out of the bottle. I just hope we don't start seeing 7th and 6th graders offered.