Photo: Jamie Holt/Auburn U.
This is a softball thread hence the SOFTBALL tag.
The Tigers' season ended Sunday with a loss at Clemson in the regional final. Auburn finished 43-19 overall and 15-9 in league play, which was good enough for third place.
(They were 40-17, 11-13 the year before.)
I started this thread because I'm just not sure how I feel about things here in a general sense. Mickey Dean just finished his sixth season with Auburn. The lowest point of this season was opening SEC play with a series loss at Georgia, a team that ended up being better than I thought at the time, and then going to Oklahoma City and getting skull-drug during a four-game set against Northwestern and Oklahoma.
With that said, Auburn ended up winning its final four series of the regular season. The team was playing better during the season's second half and, barring the final loss, performed at a level I expected.
The problem here is that ace pitcher Maddie Penta is the best Auburn's ever had — and clearly is one of the nation's top, say, five pitchers. Without Penta, this team might not even be .500 overall. (She finished 27-7 this season.) To me, that's a problem. Yes, having a great pitcher is to Dean's credit and, yes, many/most teams rely heavily on their ace pitcher to keep them afloat. Auburn isn't alone in that manner. At the same time, I don't sense that the team's hitting is improving at all.
Auburn hit just .223 in SEC games this season (.248 was league average) and scored 80 runs in its 24 league games, which tied it for 9th place.
Those numbers were down +/- 15% from their generally disappointing 2022 performance.
Only a few hitters really stick out to me. Nelia Peralta and Denver Bryant are good most of the time. Bri Ellis is a feast-or-famine slugger, but she understands the strike zone and she's good. I'd say the same for Lindsey Garcia, though she tailed off toward season's end and now is in the portal.
I think I like KK McCrary, but she's inconsistent.
So for me, that's four solid/good SEC starters and then a bunch of girls who are inconsistent or maybe not quite good enough. (Icess Tresvik battled in the regional; she may be on the way up.)
BOTTOM LINE:
This team needs more hitters and it needs to be better at making its hitters more formidable. That's a real blight because this team fields well (second in the league in fielding percentage) and Penta is both outstanding and durable. I'm not as worried about the future of Auburn pitching; I think Emmah Rolfe will be good in time and Annabelle Widra will be at least solid in time. Dean is good with pitchers.
Still, this team is maxed out from a W-L perspective without something significant changing on the hitting side of the equation.
I look forward to hearing from our softball experts on this. We have a number of sharp minds dedicated to AU softball ...
