Rounding Third Softball

Southern Illinois-Edwardsville interim head coach P.J. Finigan has resigned. Finigan led the Cougars through the 2022 season compiling a 19-35 record.

The hiring of Finigan from the SIUE Baseball staff early last summer and being given the interim tag for the year, was seen at the time as a unfathomable and lazy move by SIUE Administration. At the time Director of Athletics Tim Hall said there were not enough “qualified” applicants for the position, indicating why this hire was made.

RTS learned there were numerous qualified applicants that had applied early in the summer hiring cycle. That pool was made up of former and current head coaches along with some current assistant coaches from within SIUE’s conference at the time. An open records request for the list of applicants made by RTS to SIUE was denied.

Let’s hope Mr. Hall and his administrative staff do their due-diligence this time around for their student-athletes in finding a suitable and permanent leader for their program moving forward.

Sources have confirmed to RTS that Memphis will part ways with head coach Natalie Poole. Poole had led the Tigers since 2012. Her most successful season came in 2018 when the program finished with 37 victories. The 2022 squad went 16-38 and 2-16 in AAC play.

Kansas City is parting ways with head coach Kerry Shaw. UMKC indicated they were not renewing his contract on Tuesday. In three seasons coaching the Kangaroos, Shaw compiled a record of 48-73.

Could Jocelyn Alo’s professional future lay away from the softball diamond? One scout at last night’s WCWS Final between Oklahoma and Texas could indicate that. Stephanie McMahon daughter of WWE Owner Vince McMahon was in attendance at the Sooners National Championship Victory in Oklahoma City. Alo was an accomplished amateur wrestler for her high school in Hawaii before coming to OU.

NCAA announced the WCWS All-Tournament Team at the conclusion of the event last night. The National Champion Oklahoma Sooners led the team with five selections, including Jocelyn Alo the MVP of the WCWS who hit .656 with nine home runs.

2022 WCWS All-Tournament Team:

Jocelyn Alo-Oklahoma (MVP)

Tiara Jennings-Oklahoma

Jayda Coleman-Oklahoma

Rylie Boone-Oklahoma

Hope Trautwein-Oklahoma

Bella Dayton-Texas

Courtney Day-Texas

Estelle Czech-Texas

Delanie Wisz-UCLA

Megan Faraimo-UCLA

Maya Brady-UCLA

Kelley Maxwell-Oklahoma State

Gay McNutt has been named the new head coach at Texas Woman’s University. McNutt is a veteran of the sport and spent the last four seasons on the staff at Texas A&M-Commerce. In 2022 she served as interim head coach. McNutt also led programs as Stephen F. Austin and Southern Miss.

RTS has obtained an internal memo circulating to the membership of the National Fastpitch Coaches Association (NFCA) on behalf of their Head Coaches Committee (HCC) that could drastically change the face of recruiting moving forward.

The NCAA Transformation Committee is exploring moving all sports to recruiting calendars that are only comprised of two or three type of recruiting periods.

The examples follow the Sample Models below.

Recruiting Period (Green): All recruiting activities are permitted during a recruiting period.

Dead Period (Red): In-person recruiting activities are prohibited (e.g., contacts, evaluations, visits, to campus). Correspondence (e.g. texts, emails) and telephone calls are permitted during this time.

Recruiting Shutdown (Black): No recruiting activities of any kind are permitted during this time.

While the attached models are examples, it seems uncertain by many RTS sources with direct knowledge of the situation whether these exact models are being considered specifically. NFCA and it’s membership could come up with there own models in varying forms as calendars go. The same sources also indicated to RTS that there seems to be a lot of miscommunication, misinformation, and in one coaches words “complete confusion” within the Divison I Membership on all the moving parts of this currently. However, each head coach has been asked to give their feedback/comments to the HCC Represntive of each Division I Conference within the next week.

Christopher Newport (47-1) has finished No. 1 in the last NFCA Division III Top 25 Coaches Poll of the 2022 season. The Captains captured the program’s first National Championship late last month defeating No. 2 Trine (35-13).

Rank	Team	Points	2022 Record	Previous
1	Christopher Newport (10)	250	47-1	1
2	Trine	240	35-13	20
3	Texas Lutheran	230	45-6	2
4	Berry	220	36-13	10
5	Salisbury	210	42-8	4
6	Eastern Connecticut State	200	44-7	3
7	Belhaven	190	41-8	5
8	Virginia Wesleyan	180	36-13	9
9	Millikin	170	37-9	RV
T10	Bethel	155	37-7	12
T10	Randolph-Macon	155	35-11	16
12	Worcester Polytechnic Institute	140	35-17	NR
13	Case Western Reserve	130	30-12	T25
14	Linfield	120	38-9	6
15	East Texas Baptist	110	33-12	7
16	Concordia (Wis.)	100	36-6	18
17	Wartburg	90	30-4	T25
18	Mary Hardin-Baylor	80	32-11	11
19	Birmingham-Southern	70	32-8	15
20	Piedmont	60	31-11	14
21	Rowan	50	35-10	17
22	DePauw	40	35-11	8
T23	Mount St. Joseph	11	34-12	NR
T23	Tufts	11	36-12	NR
25	Babson	10	38-10	23

Others receiving votes: Ohio Northern 8, WashU 7, and Arcadia 1.

Dropped out: Amherst, Buena Vista, Geneseo, Illinois Wesleyan, Roanoke, Rochester, Susquehanna

Rogers State (58-10) is the unanimous No. 1 in the final NFCA Division II Top 25 Coaches Poll of 2022. The Hillcats won the program’s first Division II National Title at the end of May defeating Cal State Dominguez Hills (45-24) in the championship final.

Rank	School	Points	2022 Record	Prev. Ranking
1	Rogers State (16)	400	58-10	4
2	Cal State Dominguez Hills	382	45-24
3	UT Tyler	367	49-9	1
4	Auburn Montgomery	351	49-13	3
5	North Georgia	336	49-18	18
6	Southern Indiana	303	49-13	10
7	Seton Hill	291	42-12	RV
8	Texas A&M-Kingsville	281	50-12	2
9	Central Oklahoma	276	48-13	8
10	Adelphi	272	47-15	22
11	Cal State San Marcos	239	45-14	11
12	Valdosta State	227	38-14	12
13	Augustana	188	50-10	9
14	Grand Valley State	169	43-8	21
15	Kutztown	147	40-15	20
16	Tampa	141	38-13	6
17	Anderson	131	40-10	15
18	Lubbock Christian	128	39-12	16
19	Indianapolis	117	48-10	5
20	Concordia Irvine	104	46-10	13
21	Angelo State	91	39-12	7
22	Minnesota State	86	48-14	17
23	Lincoln Memorial	71	45-9	RV
24	Wilmington	28	38-20
25	UAH	24	41-17	24

New to Poll: No. 2 Cal State Dominguez Hills, No. 7 Seton Hill, No. 23 Lincoln Memorial, No. 24 Wilmington.

Dropped Out:  No. 14 Texas A&M-Commerce, No. 19 Oklahoma Christian, No. 23 Washburn, No. 25 Lenoir-Rhyne.

Receiving Votes: St. Mary’s (21), Texas A&M-Commerce (12), Sonoma State (9), Washburn (6), Saginaw Valley State (2).

BREAKING NEWS: RTS has confirmed that Arizona State Coach Trisha Ford will be named the new head coach at Texas A&M. Ford spent the last six seasons coaching the Sun Devils. During that time she won 212 games and made five NCAA Postseason appearances. Her 2018 ASU Squad made an appearance in the Women’s College World Series. This years team won the Pac-12 Championship and missed another WCWS by one game in the Super Regional Round.