Duke Softball 2025
- Thread starter loran16
- Start date
DoubleBlue
Member
Curd gets the complete game win and shutout despite having no clean innings and giving up 8 hits with 3 walks and 5 strikeouts.
Definitely not her best game (Altho after 17 innings this weekend, she worked her I'm a real wanker for saying this. I'm a real wanker for saying this. off) but this is also the result in a flaw of UNC’s offense design - when you’re playing three slappers you’re gonna have runners on base frequently but those same batters can’t get runners home. Saw this last year as well.
not the best sign of their coaching
Duke Softball, midseason (2/3 of the way through the season really) recap:
If you've not really been following Duke softball during basketball season, you might now be coming back to the team that had so much success last year with Team7. Team8 (aka the 8th softball team ever Duke has fielded) had an almost impossible level to live upto - coming off our first ever World Series appearance and losing the ACC Player of the Year (Claire Davidson), the ACC Pitcher of the Year (Jala Wright) and a couple of other major pieces who formed the heart of the team (Kelly Torres, Francesca Frelick, Gisele Tapia). Duke brought in 4 Freshmen and 3* transfers and kept one Ace Pitcher (Cassidy Curd) and another first team all American (Aminah Vega), but it was always going to a hard road for this team to live up to the standard set last year.
*A fourth transfer, Jess Oakland, is the biggest transfer Duke has ever gotten, but since she opted to transfer late she won't be eligible to play until next year, when she will have two years of eligibility remaining.*
And while last year's Duke team had a weak non conference schedule for that really great team to run roughshod over, this team had the #1 ranked non-conference schedule this year, featuring tons of ranked teams, two top 5 teams in Florida (2 games in Gainesville) and UCLA (1 game in California on a neutral field), and a bunch of other teams who might have and in fact did turn out to be pretty great (a 3 game series with South Carolina). Up until the South Carolina series, Duke performed almost as well as you could have hoped - Duke split the series with Florida, who was #1 at the time, beat UCLA, and beat a bunch of other ranked teams despite disappointing early losses to Northwestern and Missouri. It did so through elite pitching thanks to Cassidy Curd, as the Duke bats were....kind of toothless for a while this season, especially in the power department.
And then Duke hosted South Carolina for 3 games and got trashed, getting swept in 3 games where the pitching just wasn't there against an unproven but largely new SC team (who has since maintained their top 10 ranking). The result featured Cassidy Curd kind of breaking down, as she always had been prone to moments of being erratic due to some natural wildness to her pitching, and Duke's other pitchers weren't able to keep up. Curd would continue to struggle for a while after that (and may have had a back issue), which would make Duke's life miserable, because, well, Duke didn't have a reliable second pitcher - Dani Drogemuller was outright unplayable against good teams last year, Sophie Garner-Mackinnon was likewise, and Freshmen Hailey Shuler has been destroyed by any team who has okay hitting (6.55 ERA and a .358 BAA in 25 innings yikes). And our expected best incoming freshman, Ava Bradshaw, has seemingly been out all season injured.
Thankfully, with the exception of a series sweep against by FSU, Duke has actually managed to figure things out a little bit on the pitching side. Dani Drogemuller managed to figure out something to pitch at a decent respectable level and get Duke a bunch of wins even against teams like Clemson (Duke took 2/3) and Syracuse (2/3) and most recently against UNC, Duke swept Carolina with Cassidy Curd finally seeming to come back in her own - 17 IP, 3 Earned runs this past weekend to go along with 3 wins. And well, I've mentioned that difficult schedule up front, and Duke doesn't really face anyone close to the top 25 for the rest of the season, so Duke should climb back up the ACC Standings and is in good shape for a Regional Hosting spot for the fourth straight year (In theory if Duke wins out a super regional hosting spot is possible, but I think that's unlikely).
Offensively, Duke has struggled to make up for all the losses at bat. Aminah Vega (.431/.483/.669) is hitting well as usual, but even she isn't hitting the ball out of the park and is more batting average reliant than usual. Ana Gold is having a bounceback season think god, leading the team in home runs with 8 (not a high number) and hitting .341/.418/595, but she's not replacing the insane season of Claire Davidson either. Transfer Thessa Malau'ulu, who didn't really hit at UCLA, has been better than expected with a .342/.424/.491 line (including her first two career HRs in the same game after 4 toothless UCLA years). KK Mathis hasn't put up the power numbers we hoped for after transferring in from James Mdison, but she's hitting .314/.392/.486, which is fine if not super special. And while they struggled to start, Amiah Burgess, Jada Baker, and Freshman Brooklinn Thomas are beginning to hit again, although Thomas' hitting numbers remain dreadful due to how awful her start was. Again, some of this is because Duke faced some of the best pitchers in the country in non-conference and Duke has performed better against weaker ACC Pitchers, but still, Duke's offense is down from last year's .322/.401/.512 line, with the team hitting instead .321/.386/485., but the numbers are getting closer and closer to last year's line over time and against weaker pitching. Really the biggest struggle has been former All ACC junior D'Auna Jennings, who came into the season hitting over .400 as our leadoff slap hitter and is now hitting .331/.356/.377, which is just not nearly good enough.
Again, this Duke team can make noise in the postseason if Curd can figure things out and the bats continue to come alive. The unbalanced schedule in the ACC that made it difficult for Duke last year is in our favor, but Duke probably should land in the ACC Tournament with a 3 seed or so, leaving us to face top ACC Teams FSU and VT (whom we don't play in the regular season) to defend our ACC Title. The key is to not lose any of the remaining games if we can, because none of these games will help our resume and a loss will hurt...the key is still to host a regional and to get back to a Super, where with our pitching anything can happen.
The Team does not have a midweek game this week but will travel to a terrible Pitt team this weekend that Duke should destroy. So if you're just tuning in for the first time, you're about to see plenty of winning.
If you've not really been following Duke softball during basketball season, you might now be coming back to the team that had so much success last year with Team7. Team8 (aka the 8th softball team ever Duke has fielded) had an almost impossible level to live upto - coming off our first ever World Series appearance and losing the ACC Player of the Year (Claire Davidson), the ACC Pitcher of the Year (Jala Wright) and a couple of other major pieces who formed the heart of the team (Kelly Torres, Francesca Frelick, Gisele Tapia). Duke brought in 4 Freshmen and 3* transfers and kept one Ace Pitcher (Cassidy Curd) and another first team all American (Aminah Vega), but it was always going to a hard road for this team to live up to the standard set last year.
*A fourth transfer, Jess Oakland, is the biggest transfer Duke has ever gotten, but since she opted to transfer late she won't be eligible to play until next year, when she will have two years of eligibility remaining.*
And while last year's Duke team had a weak non conference schedule for that really great team to run roughshod over, this team had the #1 ranked non-conference schedule this year, featuring tons of ranked teams, two top 5 teams in Florida (2 games in Gainesville) and UCLA (1 game in California on a neutral field), and a bunch of other teams who might have and in fact did turn out to be pretty great (a 3 game series with South Carolina). Up until the South Carolina series, Duke performed almost as well as you could have hoped - Duke split the series with Florida, who was #1 at the time, beat UCLA, and beat a bunch of other ranked teams despite disappointing early losses to Northwestern and Missouri. It did so through elite pitching thanks to Cassidy Curd, as the Duke bats were....kind of toothless for a while this season, especially in the power department.
And then Duke hosted South Carolina for 3 games and got trashed, getting swept in 3 games where the pitching just wasn't there against an unproven but largely new SC team (who has since maintained their top 10 ranking). The result featured Cassidy Curd kind of breaking down, as she always had been prone to moments of being erratic due to some natural wildness to her pitching, and Duke's other pitchers weren't able to keep up. Curd would continue to struggle for a while after that (and may have had a back issue), which would make Duke's life miserable, because, well, Duke didn't have a reliable second pitcher - Dani Drogemuller was outright unplayable against good teams last year, Sophie Garner-Mackinnon was likewise, and Freshmen Hailey Shuler has been destroyed by any team who has okay hitting (6.55 ERA and a .358 BAA in 25 innings yikes). And our expected best incoming freshman, Ava Bradshaw, has seemingly been out all season injured.
Thankfully, with the exception of a series sweep against by FSU, Duke has actually managed to figure things out a little bit on the pitching side. Dani Drogemuller managed to figure out something to pitch at a decent respectable level and get Duke a bunch of wins even against teams like Clemson (Duke took 2/3) and Syracuse (2/3) and most recently against UNC, Duke swept Carolina with Cassidy Curd finally seeming to come back in her own - 17 IP, 3 Earned runs this past weekend to go along with 3 wins. And well, I've mentioned that difficult schedule up front, and Duke doesn't really face anyone close to the top 25 for the rest of the season, so Duke should climb back up the ACC Standings and is in good shape for a Regional Hosting spot for the fourth straight year (In theory if Duke wins out a super regional hosting spot is possible, but I think that's unlikely).
Offensively, Duke has struggled to make up for all the losses at bat. Aminah Vega (.431/.483/.669) is hitting well as usual, but even she isn't hitting the ball out of the park and is more batting average reliant than usual. Ana Gold is having a bounceback season think god, leading the team in home runs with 8 (not a high number) and hitting .341/.418/595, but she's not replacing the insane season of Claire Davidson either. Transfer Thessa Malau'ulu, who didn't really hit at UCLA, has been better than expected with a .342/.424/.491 line (including her first two career HRs in the same game after 4 toothless UCLA years). KK Mathis hasn't put up the power numbers we hoped for after transferring in from James Mdison, but she's hitting .314/.392/.486, which is fine if not super special. And while they struggled to start, Amiah Burgess, Jada Baker, and Freshman Brooklinn Thomas are beginning to hit again, although Thomas' hitting numbers remain dreadful due to how awful her start was. Again, some of this is because Duke faced some of the best pitchers in the country in non-conference and Duke has performed better against weaker ACC Pitchers, but still, Duke's offense is down from last year's .322/.401/.512 line, with the team hitting instead .321/.386/485., but the numbers are getting closer and closer to last year's line over time and against weaker pitching. Really the biggest struggle has been former All ACC junior D'Auna Jennings, who came into the season hitting over .400 as our leadoff slap hitter and is now hitting .331/.356/.377, which is just not nearly good enough.
Again, this Duke team can make noise in the postseason if Curd can figure things out and the bats continue to come alive. The unbalanced schedule in the ACC that made it difficult for Duke last year is in our favor, but Duke probably should land in the ACC Tournament with a 3 seed or so, leaving us to face top ACC Teams FSU and VT (whom we don't play in the regular season) to defend our ACC Title. The key is to not lose any of the remaining games if we can, because none of these games will help our resume and a loss will hurt...the key is still to host a regional and to get back to a Super, where with our pitching anything can happen.
The Team does not have a midweek game this week but will travel to a terrible Pitt team this weekend that Duke should destroy. So if you're just tuning in for the first time, you're about to see plenty of winning.
CameronBornAndBred
Well-known member
Great writeup, @loran16 . I noticed during game three of our Carolina sweep that the announcers were all over our strength of schedule and early tournament challenges. I tend to agree with them that toughness of our schedule, even with the imperfect record that it leaves us, can only help in the long term of the season. We seem to be in a good place, although help in pitching would sure be welcome.
Terrific!
The ladies probably miss not having Ava Bradshaw, a top-notch frosh pitcher, ready to go/learn/work in the circle…trashed her knee/leg in her last HS game…next year for her.
Dani Drogmuller has been a bit better/poised this year…and Curd has hopefully gotten over her back issues with the very nice series sweep of Carolina.
Next year will also see Oakland, and she was excellent in the BIG…hopefully will step in for Ana Gold. Jada Baker is seeing the ball much better and has been fine at 1B.
Lots of positives; some negatives…everyone misses the grads, esp Davidson and Wright.
We’re in the opposite situation as last year because of it - last year we were underseeded because our non conf schedule was poor. This year we will be overseeded.
Which is not a bad problem to have. And as we saw this weekend where we played a team with the opposite scheduling philosophy, getting overconfident by not playing anyone good doesn’t really teach how to win.
King of Defense
Member
Coach K referred to his 1987 team as the "bridge" team. After losing the great class of Dawkins, Alarie, Bilas and Henderson, they weren't going to win the national championship and probably not the ACC. But they'd still have some good moments, and that would help the program stay up in the elite ranks. Then they went to five straight Final Fours, winning two of them.
It's a different sport and a different era, but staying competitive one year after being a trophy-winning team is nothing but good for the program.
CameronBornAndBred
Well-known member
Duke moved up to 15 in the polls.
DoubleBlue
Member
DoubleBlue
Member
What a great pick up for Duke even if only for one year. I heard they call her Mom because of her leadership and experience.
Just caught a hard hard liner without issue on d too.