Pictured: Alison Ortega, an accomplished 2027 pitcher from Southern California, announced this week that she’ll sign with Duke after previously having committed to Harvard.

*****

First, we always love it when players, parents and coaches send us the happy news of a verbal commit so please do so!

You can send any commit news to: Brentt.Eads@LineDriveMedia.com.

Here’s one example that came in this week; it was emailed from the athlete’s father, Zachary Faulkner, who wrote to say:

My daughter Mackenzie Faulkner has verbally committed to Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky.

We’ve added Mackenzie to our list going back to Sept. 1 of last year and congratulate her!

Decommits Due to the 5-5 Rule

Are you familiar with the 5-for-5 eligibility rule?

It’s a new rule that allows D1 athletes to play five years within their sport for a continuous five-year window of eligibility.

It begins when the athlete enrolls full-time or at the beginning of the academic year following the player’s 19^th birthday—whichever comes first.

So what is this relevant?

Because it makes some important changes, especially the elimination of redshirts and medical waivers, because injuries or other delays still count against this five-year time period.

The new five-year clock rule can only be paused or extended for very limited exceptions including an athlete being in the military or going on a church mission.

What we’re finding is that it’s impacted how some university athletic programs have projected their recruiting plans over the next several years—i.e., how many scholarship they can give out—and they’ve had to make big changes including “decommitting” some currently committed players.

It’s unfortunate and we hope it won’t become a huge issue, but it has impacted several talented softball players… here are two examples who’ve announced via social media that they are now available to be recruited again:

From one great academic university to another…

A significant decommit this week was incoming senior Alison Ortega who was originally committed to Harvard but now will be going to Duke instead.

The right-handed pitcher for La Mirada (Calif.) High had 20 wins this spring with a 1.05 ERA and in 140 innings had 161 strikeouts.

Here’s her announcment…

On the other side, here are a few of this week’s additions who have finalized their college plans:

*****

If you know of a commit AT ANY LEVEL, email Brentt.Eads@LineDriveMedia.com to get the verbal added to our Master Commit Spreadsheet

NOTE: We publish the updated list weekly–typically on Sundays.