Pictured: Cassidy Ott is a 2027 catcher and utility player for Santa Fe Inferno – Nowling who has committed to the University of Maine.

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College Coaches Are Out Recruiting… Or Are They?

The big news from last week into this week has been the national travel ball events produced by Premier Girls Fastpitch (PGF) in California and Alliance Nationals in Indiana.

Name a Division I university and they’ve probably been at one of these elite events… or both.

We were told several top college head coaches such as Patty Gasso (Oklahoma) and Marissa Young (Duke) were at both events last week, flying from one event to the other mid-week, when the 18U and 16U players in action.

Why?

You’d think top college coaches–head coaches and assistants–would be out recruiting, especially looking at the younger players and that is true… they ARE looking for talent, for sure, but in many cases two things are happening:

1. the college coaches are at a game sitting in the stands, if you will, to “show love” to their committed and/or signed players. A nice gesture of support and it’s appreciated by the players, for sure. At one PGF Nationals game, for example, we saw Cal Head Coach Steve Singleton watching a team that had three of his Bears commits/signings on the field. Talking to one of the committed players after the game, she said: “I really appreciated seeing him at our game to show us he’s watching and rooting for us to do well.”
2. the other reason is similar in that is has to do with “face time.” With Sept. 1 right around the corner, the first day college coaches can contact 2028 players they are interested in, you saw a LOT of top college head coaches–from the likes of Florida, UCLA, Oklahoma, etc.–making appearances, once again, to have an on-site presence nd show their interest in elite players. For example, one premier 2028 pitcher had no less than 10 coaches from Power4 schools in the stand watching her. The evaluation aspect is done in this case–they all KNOW they want her; it’s now just a case of having a presence and hoping it’s appreciated and that the love goes both ways! It’s the sports equivalent of marketing and sales in some ways!

The other big news this week is that huge number of player–we had 133 in the last week alone–commit and/or publicly announce they’ve finalized their college choice.

It goes to show there are still many top players on the market in the 2027 & 2026 classes and dozens each day seemingly are committing (mostly to non-D1 schools). 

Great news for all those looking to take their game to the next level… and the moral of the story: never give up working hard and looking to catch the eye of a college coach. 

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Here are a few of this week’s additions who have finalized their college plans:

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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 Sunday