The USA Softball JO Cup kicks off today with pool games from 8 am to the last scheduled games at 7 pm.

FloSoftball will be covering—as well as streaming all the games—of this first year event produced by ASA/USA Softball at the Big League Field of Dreams in Chino Hills through Friday; on Saturday, the semis and championship game will be played at Mt. SAC in Walnut, Calif.

We’ll be blogging daily with news and notes around the event, so be sure to check in periodically…

CLICK HERE to sign-up/log in to see all the JO Cup games running today through Saturday!

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HURRICANES ON THE MEND

One of the sharper looking teams on Monday in pool play at the USA JO Cup has been the Gold Coast Hurricanes, which went 2-0 with wins over 3n2 Strike Zone and Texas Blaze.

At the TC/USA Nationals the Hurricanes dropped their first two games after being ranked highly in the ratings prior to the event.

“What happened?” we joked, but found out that the Florida team was decimated by sickness which ran rampant through the team.

“We had eight girls who went down with something viral,” explained head coach Marty Cooper including three player who had to go to the emergency room. One even had to say behind, she was so sick. It was a nasty virus that ran through our dugout.”

The quick drop to another bracket was one of the early surprised in those Nationals, especially when you look at the talent on the roster.

There are 13 signed or committed players including three—outfielder Lily Mann (2015) and catchers Jordan Roberts (2016) and Danielle Romanello (2107)—who are headed to the two-time Div. I National Champion Florida Gators.

FloSoftball asked Coach Cooper who’s had a strong summer and pointed to 2017 shortstop Taylor Bump, a Michigan commit, as being one who’s upped her game.

“Taylor has being making the necessary adjustments,” he explained. “She’s getting it done on offense and defense.”

The coach, who, along with his wife Syd was getting a bite to eat after his second game, has been one of the biggest proponents of the JO Cup.

“It’s something different than the other Nationals which have been getting too big and diluted,” Cooper said. “I think smaller is better and you still have some upper elite teams here. It’s in the best interest for softball.”

“This gives teams and coaches other options and variety and I’m glad to see it’s come to pass after so many people have worked hard to get it done.”

“I saw five USA team evaluators walking around the complex looking at players, which is one of the goals here—to look at the players for down the road.”

ONE TEAM CHANGE

The action has begun in Chino Hills as the 28 teams checked in yesterday, had a coaches’ meeting last night and starting playing Monday morning at 8 am.

The most notable change is that the Florida Power had to back out because of an illness that has impacted the organization.

In its place the San Diego Power Surge 18U team will be playing this week, a pretty underrated program that has produced players going to Pac-12 and Big Ten schools.

WEEK PREVIEW

Today has a fairly lose feel as teams have practice games through Tuesday night. There will be four games played at all times Monday and Tuesday—from 8 am to 5 pm starts except Monday at 7 pm when only two games will start.

Then Wednesday the fun begins as the double elimination bracket play begins. We’ll have those match-ups later.

One meeting to keep an eye on takes place Tuesday night as there will be a Coaches Meeting to discuss the JO Cup and how it moves forward in the future.

According to Event Director Chris Sebren, the JO Cup will “most lively be on the East Coast next year.”

And, significantly, all 28 teams playing this year will be extended an automatic berth for next year if they want.

According to Sebren, “The coaches will be asked what they would like to see in the future including location, entry fee and size of the tournament. Do we want to go to 32? Or 36? We’ll keep it in increments of four so teams get in their guaranteed games.”

TEXAS TEAM TO WATCH

The Texas Blaze Gold-Slimp team was very impressive at the Boulder IDT tournament where it finished 5^th before losing to the So Cal A’s.

Then in Reno, the team faded a bit finishing around 25^th due to missing three key players including two pitchers. Plus the team had four guest players.

“It was still a successful tournament,” Coach John Carpenter said today prior to his team taking the field against the Gold Coast Hurricanes, “but Colorado was special.”

One reason he attributes to the team’s strong play this summer is chemistry.

“In 27 years,” he continued, “this team has the best single best chemistry I’ve been around. It may sound cheesy, but this group has the most love and unity of a team, it’s huge. This morning we played well (won 4-1) and we expect to all week.”

All three pitchers are back and he rotated them in today effectively.

Another thing that makes the Blaze one of the top 5-7 teams to watch at the JO Cup is the power bats: infielder Hailey MacKay (2016, Arkansas), catcher Taylor Ellsworth (2017, Texas) and infielder Chelsea Segger (2016, Tennessee) “have close to 30 home runs this summer,” the coach continues.

He’ll need the pitching and offense to be clicking on Wednesday, because the Blaze will face another Lone Star State team in their opening bracket game, an afternoon match-up versus the Texas Bombers and either Sam Show (2015, Texas A&M) or Brooke Vestal (2018, Oklahoma) in the circle.

SO CAL VIA LAS VEGAS

Michigan Finesse head coach Donny Dreher has an interesting philosophy when it comes at getting his players to a tournament: he lets them travel how they want and stay where they want.

“Some families want to be in a five-star hotel,” he explains, “and some want to stay in a Motel 6.”

The coach took a unique path to get to the tournament too—he flew from Michigan to Las Vegas and then drove the 4-4 ½ hours to Chino Hills, Calif.

“It was a bit cheaper and I’ve done it a few times,” Dreher stated, “One other player did it that way too, but everybody is on their own when it comes to travel arrangements. I let them set it up on their own because some like to stay with family or stay longer based on what they want to do.”

As for Las Vegas, he said it wasn’t as smooth of a drive as he would have lived.

“I didn’t realize that a lot of (Southern California) people go to Vegas for the weekend and then drive back on Sunday nights. I got slowed down in a lot of that return traffic.”

The questions was asked: where there “alternative” reasons to fly into Vegas in the first place?

The coach laughed and said, “Gambling isn’t even one of my vices.”

We’ll just leave it at that…

MONDAY POOL PLAY RESULTS (ongoing):

• Gametime Stars 3, California Raiders 0
• New Lenox Lightning 1, Texas Storm 0
• Texas Blaze-Slimp 4, Ohio Outlaws 1
• Gold Coast Hurricanes 4, 3n2 Strike Zone 0
• Indiana Magic 1, Aces Express 1
• Wichita Mustangs 6, San Jose Sting 1
• Houston Power 4, American Pastime Gold 4
• Rock Gold 4, Wagner’s 3n2 3
• Ohio Outlaws 3, 3n2 Strike Zone 2
• Gametime Stars 11, Texas Storm 4
• Gold Coast Hurricanes 6, Texas Blaze 3
• Houston Power 11, Wagner’s 3n2 2
• Indiana Magic 3, San Jose Sting 2
• Rock Gold 4, American Pastime 3
• Wichita Mustangs 11, Aces Express 5
• Texas Bombers 2, St. Louis Chaos 2
• TXFC Fastpitch 8, San Diego Power Surge 2
• Louisiana Voodoo 5, DeMarini Athletics 3
• East Cobb Bullets 9, Louisville Sluggers 0