College Softball News

Is Experience Necessary at the Women’s College World Series?

Coaches, commentators, and fans love to debate about how necessary experience is for success. When a junior or senior produces in the clutch, a commentator will talk about her making use of her experience performing in big games. When a freshman doesn’t come through, her coach will talk about her inexperience. When it comes to the WCWS, such talk is amplified, because not only does experience (or lack thereof) in the women’s college game matter, but experience at this tournament — that is, a junior or senior coming to OKC for the first time might show some nerves by just being on a stage this big with stakes so high.

Not everyone believes that you need experience. UCLA Head Coach Kelly Inouye-Perez has a deep and talented roster returning from last year’s tourney bid, but she starts some freshmen with no experience at the WCWS. I asked her whether that matters. “We have a saying at UCLA,” Inouye-Perez said, “and the saying is ‘the game doesn’t know how old you are.’ They’ve all been playing since they were seven or eight years old. They have great experience in the game. If you act like a freshman and act like you’re inexperienced, then yes, it will definitely show up, but as you get more experience, you learn how to manage those things.” Inouye-Perez recruits high-level athletes who have been go-to’s throughout their careers, and so she believes that they’ve always played with high expectations and learned how to deal with those expectations.

8500 passionate softball fans attended the opening session’s games for the WCWS. Young women who haven’t been in the tournament had never played in front of such a large crowd or played at the venue that they’ve seen so often on television. Was the experience overwhelming for the newcomers? For some, perhaps. For others, less so.

In the first at-bat of the first game, Arizona State’s Kindra Hackbarth, a newcomer to the WCWS, singled; her freshman teammate, Denae Chatman, followed with a home run. No apparent nerves there. But after getting ahead 2-0, Arizona State gave up the lead with some sloppy fielding. They had been credited with only two errors as of the fourth, but they had misplayed about 5-6 balls that could have kept them in the game, or even ahead, if they had made all the plays. Newcomer to the WCWS Morgan Howe hit a three-run home run in the top of the fifth to close the gap to 6-5, but Oregon pulled away in the late innings.

The day’s second game matched Washington against two-time defending champion Oklahoma. The Huskies’ Head Coach Heather Tarr handed the ball to a freshman, Gabbie Plain, who not only was throwing against a line-up that led the country in runs scored, but who had the majority of the 8500 in attendance rooting for Oklahoma. Pressure? You wouldn’t know it, watching her in the circle. She kept pitch counts low and her defense — particularly the left side with Taylor Van Zee and Sis Bates — played great behind her. Taran Alvelo relieved Plain in the sixth and combined they shut out Oklahoma. I asked Plain what her emotions were like before the game and then in that first inning. “There was definitely nerves,” she said, “but that’s a healthy thing. It keeps you on your toes. I was just going out there and thinking it was like any other game.” She’s a cool customer.

I watched the four games on opening day keeping in mind whether players had been here before or not. Georgia wasn’t in OKC last year, and sophomore Justice Milz came up for her first time in the WCWS and hit a deep bomb in the first inning, temporarily putting the Bulldogs ahead. Florida’s freshman Jordan Matthews answered with a two-run double off the center field wall in the bottom of the inning, on her first at-bat in the WCWS. Freshman Hannah Adams later homered for the Gators.

Not all the freshmen or all the newcomers excelled on opening day, but surprisingly to me, many of them did. So don’t just listen to the commentators repeat what goes for a truism but might be more complicated, and more individualistic. This issue about the importance of experience is something for you all to watch and decide about for yourselves.

Mark Allister teaches literature and writing at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. He is currently finishing his book, due out in 2019, Turn and Look: Women’s College Softball Is Crushing It.

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