vt49701

Thanks for sharing! Very interesting to scan the US rosters there. My first thought was that I would have expected to see more lefty pitchers in there. But I don’t follow the sport broadly enough to know who that could have been. Best of luck to US WNT hope they go far

And will get more and more competitive each year as the new class of star college pitchers join the league. Hopefully the league maintains it's current momentum and can add another team or two in the near future?

Have fun in the sunshine state Chip! Best of luck to all the Hokies competing down there this weekend!!

I was able to watch all the Blaze games on ESPN2, but tonight is on CBS sports and I’ve tried for 30 min and just can’t get it to work. Oh well. Btw my household really misses watching Hokie softball is fall ball here yet.

And earn a 6-5 win. Pickens gets the win and goes to 3-0 as a pro. Switching topics - very sorry to hear of Cori’s team folding if that turns out to be confirmed :( Hopefully she can catch on with another team soon!

For anyone interested: Pickens goes the distance and earns her second career pro win for the Blaze, who win 9-1 via 6th inning run rule Canady enters in relief in the 4th. No K’s registered. I believe 3 HR’s given up (two to Longhorn Reese Atwood). 5 ish earned runs (may have been 6), including the walk off. The Blaze look like they have a good amount of fan support down there in Durham. Although yes there are empty seats in the stands on the broadcast, when the ESPN camera pans around there are a solid amount of fans in the grass lawn down both baselines, and all around the outfield fence as well. Looks like a fun environment … Will definitely look to get the family down there for one or two games this season. Hopefully one where #27 is called upon to help her team in the circle.

Canady entered in the 4th for her first professional appearance. First batter hits a double, then the 2nd batter Reese Atwood bombs one over the center field wall to add to the Blaze lead … and Lemley is all smiles on camera congratulating Atwood at home plate and in the dugout. Good stuff.

They matchup Pickens against Canaday right out of the gate in that Blaze Volts game. Pickens looked great in her debut a few days ago. Beforehand I read something that made it seem like she’d get the benefit of a wider strike zone in the pros as compared to college. I’ll be curious to see if that turns out to be the case or not.

the other night had a sideline reporter interview Pickens parents for a good portion of the inning. They came across as super nice and great ambassadors of the sport. As so many of our Hokie families certainly are.

Being located near Pickens home town was a big part of her being drafted first. That fact along with the obvious talent, kinda makes it no brainer.

The ESPN camera zoomed to them in the stands in the fourth, and just after the final out they were announced as the ‘fans of the game’ promo winner. Awesome stuff. Pickens went the distance and got the win in her pro debut. Carolina run rules the Cascade and moves to 2-0 on the season. Our family may have to sneak a trip down to Durham later this summer.

Had the bats that we have now :) It feels like our team is getting closer and closer to earning a spot in the World Series. That’s going to be a really fun trip to OKC when the time comes.

Exactly right.

Statistically our offense can compete with these teams for sure. Just need our pitching to continue taking steps forward.

Just gifted them that run Wow - very impressive pitching in all of the games this weekend.

Shutting out Oklahoma at home through 6. Wow. Let’s see if they can get 3 more outs to finish it.

Because back in the day I always thought Peyton Manning and other Vols athletes were class acts, Pat Summitt was a legend and Pickens and other current players represent their university well on camera and seem to play the game the right way. Like we do. But the reality is I’m much more of a Hokies softball fan than a general softball fan. We had a blast traveling to South Carolina, Salem, Blacksburg and Charlottesville to watch our team compete! But now very sad that it’s over. At least for now. Look forward to being back up there for fall ball.

Earlier this morning and rewinded that play multiple times. When the second baseman went to the bag to setup for the throw, her backfoot was clearly off of the bag, as she was (incorrectly) setting up to sweep back to make the tag. And then after the safe call when they were zooming in and analyzing and what not … you couldn’t clearly see that her foot was definitely on the bag. From that zoom angle it looked like her foot was probably on the bag, but you couldn’t tell for sure. And based on the fact she clearly setup off of the bag, it’s reasonable to think she didn’t adjust it in that split second Bottom line - as other posters suggested real time yesterday, there probably wasn’t enough to overturn it. Obviously it’s great that our bats came alive in the 7th but Akron mistakes definitely helped us a lot. In addition to that second baseman incorrectly positioning for the tag when she had a force: - That first Aldridge double probably should have been caught. If CF just stays put or drop steps to start off, she makes that catch. But instead she initially stepped forward and as we know it sailed over her head (the benefits of #11 smashing that ball so hard to make CF make a quick decision) - Also on that Gaby chopper that got through up the middle … if their CF comes up gunning to 3B, it looked like our baserunner would have been out by several steps. But she hesitated and held it and ended up just lobbing it in. Akron had multiple chances to slow our momentum by getting early outs and just didn’t do it. Hopefully LSU has a few mental lapses today as well we shall see.

If I remember correctly, Kentucky had the tying run on 3B ... and Bennett came charging in to make an incredibly tough play on a slow roller to get the final out. And then a few minutes later Enter Sandman was blasting out of all the speakers. That was a great day.

We'll absolutely need Mazz. Bree --> Mazz --> Layton Let's compete and put some pressure on LSU today. Nobody has made them even break a sweat so far this weekend.

They've completely cruised in both of their games so far. Hopefully we can put some pressure on them early, and make them start thinking about how much it would suck for them to fall short in front of the home crowd.

Might catch them off guard if she put a bunt down with runners on base at some point ...

Question for the board - if you had a vote who would you want LSU to pitch against us today? There's definitely a rationale for them to pitch Cellura against us again, given how she completely shut us down and we didn't put any type of scare in them at all. But we've seen her now .... and LSU has other high quality arms. Random side note - multiple posters yesterday mentioned our 2022 regional series against Florida. I've always wondered how Game 2 would have turned out if we had kept rolling with Rochard and started her again, after she shut them out and completely dominated Game 1. Heading into that Game 2, it feels like Florida would have wanted to see anyone except Rochard, and sure enough they had success against a different look. That's kinda how I view today ... anybody but Cellura. But it feels like we're going to see her again regardless, it's just a matter of when.

Would be really really nice obviously

That’s the only thing I can think of?

But we have two on and nobody out

Been able to hit her out of the game.

Unfortunately. Momentum is so important in softball. And we just haven’t had ANY of it today.

In the past. Non-elite arm throwing in the low 60’s

Even when they’re showing our coaches on the broadcast. We look stressed. Come on bats! If we hit to our potential we’ll be fine.

Come on Hokies. We’re too good of a team for this type of chaos.

LSU hasn’t seen her yet

Let’s knock her out early. They must not have anybody solid behind her.

Come on bats let’s jump on them early and give our pitchers some cushion

She’s completely capable of shutting them down tonight, and we gotta get her going because it’s highly doubtful we can get through tomorrow without her. Hopefully our bats can explode early and she only needs to pitch 3 or 4 innings … then Fisher in to seal the win. And Carrico gets the start tomorrow. That feels like a good script. We shall see.

Ouch. Let’s get the bats back on track in this next game. ** Edited by vt49701 at 5/16/2026, 3:19:45 PM

Way to get out a jam there. Big time pitching right there.

Let’s get an out right here Let’s go 8!