*** Arizona State is having a nice run of securing good players—yesterday we reported on the commitment of shortstop/middle infielder Danielle Gibson, a shortstop/utility player, and today we have another slick-fielding infielder who will become a Sun Devil.

I saw 2017 SS/P DeNae Chatman of AZ Storm Gold 18U at the West Coast Elite Camp run by OnDeck Softball and she was impressive, athletically and in her skills. She can play infield (shortstop) as well as pitch.

Then I saw her in October at a Surf City event in Huntington Beach and wrote then: “Saturday at the Surf City Showcase she made a great defensive play, climbing the ladder to steal a hit away from an Explosion batter… (she’s) another one I think will go fast in the recruiting process.”

I’d say less than three months was pretty fast, but there was no denying her abilities and now she’s Pac-12 bound.

I asked her father, Lamar Chatman, to chronicle the recruiting process and how it went with ASU… he wrote a great e-mail which details her commitment.

Here it is:

“We as parents cannot be more proud of what DeNae has done on the dirt and in the classroom (4.25 GPA). She has been attending ASU softball camps since she was nine years old. She attended the Thanksgiving Camp – ASU Head Coach Craig Nicholson’s first camp – her freshman year and at the end with three other campers they had a mini unofficial visit.

He had a lot of really great things to say but the advice at the end was priceless. Coach wanted her to get better defensively with footwork, arm, etc. It really hit home and she went to work on wanting to fix it by her next opportunity.

ASU watched her two more times prior to the Thanksgiving 2014 camp. She spoke with Coach (Boo) De Oliveira once or twice a month as well as attended ASU sporting events to get to know the coaches, team and school.

Then she attended the ASU 2014 Thanksgiving Camp and we just wanted her to have fun and not worry about recruiting.

Defensively, she played both shortstop and third base the entire camp and made some amazing defensive plays that showed her range, arm and footwork improvements under Coach Kara Brun’s teachings (AZ Storm 18U Gold and 2014 ASU Hall of Fame Inductee).

DeNae’s bat was even better and with Coach De Oliveira pitching she went 3-for-4 with a rocket off the left field fence and a centerfield home run that cleared both fences and landed on the lacrosse field on her last at bat.

Coach Nicholson did the hitting on Sunday to the infield and got to see a lot of the campers’ technique.

Following her performance at the 2014 ASU Thanksgiving Camp, DeNae was asked to stay and meet with Coach Nicholson again. This time is was not a mini unofficial but a one-on-one visit. I believe he offered her by his third sentence!

He acknowledged right away the advances she made in her defense from only a year ago.

The next part is where as a family we were the most impressed with Coach Nicholson. Denae let him know that she had commitments that she wanted to keep with Stanford, Arizona, Georgia and St. John’s and he absolutely encouraged her to keep them and get back to him by February (the date DeNae gave him when she wanted to decide).

She had a great time on her camps and visits and loved the relationships that she has built with the other teams and coaches.

We had been asking DeNae what school she was leaning toward and she would never let us know. We made score cards to compare schools, but she just wouldn’t talk much about it.

When people would ask me I would have to say, “Please ask her and if she tells you let us know!”

On January 10, 2015 at her brother’s lacrosse game DeNae said she wanted to be a Sun Devil. Her mother asked if she was sure and in pure DeNae fashion she replied, “I’ve never mentioned where I wanted to go to school before” with a smile.

We asked how did she wanted to make it official and she requested a meeting with Coach Nicholson that Coach Rick Beach — head of the Arizona Storm organization and his daughter, Erica Beach, also a ASU Hall of Famer – setup for Friday the 16^th after their practice.

We all had a great conversation for about 30-40 minutes were we all asked questions and then took pictures in the outfield. Coach Nicholson was great and DeNae is ecstatic about the school, the coaches and the team!”

*** Couple of high-profile players are changing teams:

— pitcher Lauren Rice, a 2017 Missouri commit, will be playing for the East Cobb Bullets-Schnute team in 2015 after being with the Beverly Bandits previously.  This will be a big offset to help the Bullets when Kelly Barnhill leaves for the Jr. National Team.

— catcher Lex Hull, a 2015 signee with South Carolina and also a Hot 100 player, will play with the Beverly Bandits Premier team where she’ll play with another future Gamecock in 2015 second baseman Alexis Mack.

*** FAB 50 Club Rankings… the 18U initial list is out and we’re working on the 16U list now! If you want to provide feedback, please email: Brentt@FullCountSoftball.com!

In the last two days, we probably received three dozen e-mails and calls around the 18U rankings.

Many questioned why we have certain teams ranked highly when they’ll be without key players for the Nationals run this summer.

Let me reiterate that we’re aware that some top level teams like the Corona Angels and East Cobb Bullets will be without star players like Rachel Garcia (pitcher, UCLA) and Kelly Barnhill (pitcher, Florida), respectively, as they will be gone this summer playing for the Jr. National Team.

I’ve been in the rankings business for a quarter century (OK, that made me feel old) and the way it’s generally done is you rate teams based on how they stand TODAY. The Jr. National Team impact will be addressed when it happens but, for right now, teams like the OC Batbusters still have infielder Sydney Romero (infielder, Oklahoma) and outfielder Alyssa Palomino (outfielder, Arizona) playing for them and you rate them at this point, not how they may be in June and July because you can’t gauge probably changes then either such as transfers, injuries, pick-ups, etc.

We did get some other feedback—which we love, positive OR negative—and here are a few of them (leaving names out):

— “The Northwest Blaze 18 Gold out of Beaverton, OR needs to be added to this list.  Coach is Chris Kelly.  I saw the NW Bullets and Oregon Blaze on the list, but the NW Blaze (Kelly) team just moved up to 18 Gold last fall and has several D1 bound players, including Julia Smith-Harrington (2016 RHP – Towson University).  The NW Blaze came in 5th in Colorado (16’s) and played in one of the televised games and won.  Thanks.”

— “Lil Rebels 18 Gold beat 2 out of your top 5 ranked 18U teams just this past fall alone at the Champions Elite 90 showcase in Marrietta, Georgia.  Plus they finished in 2nd place overall at ASA Nationals in Oklahoma City this past summer.   Injustice?   Las Vegas, Nevada is always over-looked, I guess because it is considered a fly-over state.  True bias at its finest.”

Well, I wouldn’t go THAT far…

*** Thanks to a source at North Carolina State who let us know that one-time commit Hunter Gibbons, a 2B/OF in the 2015 class, has decided to go to Western Carolina instead of NC State.

Gibbons, a 5-foot-7 infielder from Woodleaf, N.C., was All-Conference and All-County and according to West Carolina Head Coach Jim Clift, “Hunter is a natural talent playing primarily in the infield and she can also play a number of other positions at a high level. She can fly around the field. Hunter can be classified as a power hitter, but the bottom line is she can flat out hit. Hunter is a competitor.”

*** We may be knee deep in 2018’s but we still will cover Rising Stars in other ages and divisions too.

A 2017 whose stock is climbing is Lauryn McMahon, a catcher who plays for the Louisiana Bombers and attends Rosepine High in Rosepine, La.

She has recorded good pop times with an overhand velocity of 62 mph while attending various college camps.

Since joining the varsity team as a 7^th grader Lauryn has received high honors as a catcher including All-State Catcher, All-District, All-SWLA and Louisiana Sportsline Elite 21.

Academically, she’s rock solid too ranking No. 11 in her class of 95 with a 3.82 GPA.  She’s been recruited by Lamar University but is still out looking at other schools as well and remains uncommitted.

Here’s a video highlight package of Lauryn…

*** More verbals (a couple more after we posted the Master Verbal List at 6 am PST this morning!)

— P Skie Munoz (2015, Long Beach State)… plays for OC Batbusters – Lara
— MIF Charlee Pond (2018, Loyola Marymount)… plays for California Raiders