USC-Softball view point

Before I post this, I just want to say this, and this is just my opinion, and I do not intend to throw no 18–22-year-old under the bus. Being a baseball coach for over 25 years. The baserunning on this softball team is absolutely awful. I mean these are girls who have played softball in rec ball, travel ball, AAU softball and the baserunning and the decision making on running the bases is like worse than the bad news bears and that really is bad. Partly the blame goes on the coaches for making bad base running decisions. Whoever that man coach who is coaching third base is needs to go back to learning on when to send a runner and when not to send a runner. We have a runner on third base, and I have always been taught if the ball is hit on the infield whether it is on the first base side of the infield you do not send a runner because 99 times out of a 100 the runner is going to be thrown out. That happened several times against the team USC was playing Friday night. That game should not have been that close. Thanks to the bad decisions by the coach from the opposing team to leave their pitcher in the game USC got lucky and we had 2 base hits, and then fortunately one of our players had her first home run of the year a 3-run home run and USC won 7-4. I know baseball and yes softball goes by the basic fundamentals of baseball. Ashley Chastain Woodard had a good year last year, cannot take that from her but she really needs to work on the fundamentals of base running, when and when not to go and she needs to put a coach on third base who knows what in the world he is doing. That guy coaching third base is absolutely awful. If he coached a softball team that my daughter was part of, I would not let her play for this man. I did see where between innings Ashley talked between innings with the man had had who was coaching third base. There is no excuse for basic base running fundamentals. At times our players on the infield look like they are seeing a ufo and at times their fundamentals are bad. I know the players we have are the best we can put out there. After 50 games the errors we make are head scratching. Again, this goes back to basic fundamentals. Hopefully they can correct some of these basic fundamentals. Ashley has the 9th rated recruiting class coming in next year hopefully things will go better with the basic fundamentals of softball. I think they will.