It's really hard to believe that it is almost time for this. Long time till any home games in Boone though. Anybody know what the outlook for 2016 is? Last conference season was tough; big difference between Sun Belt and SoCon softball.

Check out @appstpromo's Tweet:

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Last season was a giveaway for new Coach Savage. The cupboard was pretty bare when she took over due to graduation, transfers and simple attrition; and she had little time for recruiting.

This season, one has to believe the talent is better, but the roster (including 10 true freshmen and a new assistant coach) is full of young women who've never played a game together. The early season road games will be rough sledding--but this team could catch some 'Belt teams napping in April and May.

That's a young team, 10 true freshman. Will be nice when they get some experience but dang it sets you up for a another rebuild in a few years. The Stewart kid is good. Had a good freshman year last year. I saw her play in HS several times. Very good short stop with power at the plate.

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They'll likely do good in non-conference but the Sun Belt will be tough sledding. ULL is #11 pre-season and USA will be around the Top 25. I do feel they'll finish better than 1-22 in league play this season.

Savage is one recruiting class away from seeing how we measure up to the second tier of the league.

Preseason picked last.

http://www.sunbeltsports.org/news/2016/ ... 64213.aspx

Pretty low bar this year. It has been said many times but probably the biggest competition jump SoCon to Sun Belt was for the Softball team. It will take a while to build up the talent to compete. We really need coaching continuity. Our facilities are not bad certainly much better than when they first converted the baseball field and the dugouts were in left and right field. Hopefully the opportunity to compete against top 25 competition will help recruiting efforts.

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Just as an FYI Coach Savage already has a pretty big group verbally committed for 2017. Several for 2018, and even a 2019 or two. As soon as this football craziness is done I'll put up a list of these known commits.

firemoose wrote:Just as an FYI Coach Savage already has a pretty big group verbally committed for 2017. Several for 2018, and even a 2019 or two. As soon as this football craziness is done I'll put up a list of these known commits.

I was looking at TBR yesterday and saw some 2018 and 2019 App commits. I wondered if this was for real so thanks for confirming. I was glad to see Savage going after some of these local (NC) kids. There is a lot of talent around here and in the past I saw so much going to Upstate or lesser programs like Wingate and LR. App has a lot to offer these kids so again great to see an active coach!!!

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Softball has started the season 0-3 with losses to #4Auburn, Butler, and WKU. The team has Furman tomorrow and Auburn again on Sunday.