In today’s Daily Update, we travel to the middle of the country to spotlight the KC Peppers and get deep into recruiting as we focus on 19 players who recently finalized their college choices including one who was interested in a college program only to find out it wasn’t the one she thought it was!

*****

TEAM PROFILE: KC PEPPERS

Head Coach Dan Eakin is a fascinating guy to talk to and it’s not just because he’s in his 29^th year of leading the KC Peppers, based out of Olathe, Kan.

Eakin’s athletic background stems from football, where he was a 5-foot-11, 215 pound linebacker and guard for Michigan State from 1958 to 1961.

“I probably weighed 210 pounds at the time, to be honest,” he laughs.  “The heaviest guy on the team at that time was probably 230-240 pounds.  That’s at Michigan State… Ohio State, Purdue, Notre Dame has some big bruisers at that time, but it was more on speed and trapping then. My junior year I broke my left arm and my career was kind of semi-over.  Just part of the deal.”

Eakin and his wife moved to Kansas City in 1967 and eventually had four daughters.  In the hot Midwest summers, his kids were “doing nothing and we were looking for something to keep them busy. I saw an ad in the paper about softball and signed them up as well as myself to be a coach at the same time.”

The long-time coach explained that there wasn’t any organized softball in Olathe at the time.

“In 1979, my oldest daughter was 12 and since I had a baseball background I got hooked on softball and coaching. Eventually, I became President of Olathe Girls Softball, which I still am.  There are 175 teams in our league.”

Originally the teams played on unlit fields at the Olathe School of the Deaf.  There weren’t even uniforms, Eakin remembers–girls showed up in jeans and tee shirts to play.

“We went to the city council and said the boys have 17 lighted fields and we got none,” Eakin states.  “We decided the city wasn’t going to help so we built our own complex, the OGSA Complex, and in 1986 started building by moving 150,000 cubic yards of dirt on 16 acres which we had to all move back when it was done.  We still play on those fields today.  We have seven fields lighted there and five more the city eventually built at Loan Elm Complex on 180 acres.”

At that time Eakin was coaching a team called the Express.  His team went to nationals in 1984 and got beat by a team called the Peppers.

Two years later, the KC Peppers began and were sponsored by a local pizza shop.  The name “Peppers” name stuck.

His last daughter stopped playing in 1983 but Eakin continued to coach and in time would take the Peppers to 20 national tournaments.

“We were winning locally a lot and winning some nationally,” explains the coach.

In 2001, the team finished third in the ASA Nationals and the next year went Gold.  Twice more the team would finish in the Top 10 in the ASA Gold Nationals.

The Peppers would also produce 10 future All-Americans at schools like Northwestern, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Missouri. One future superstar that came through the Peppers program was future UCLA National Champ and Olympic Gold Medalist Christie Ambrosi.

Eakin even sent three players to the first Alabama team which played in 1997.

A long and storied history as Eakin, the former Big Ten football player, nears his third full decade as a successful club softball coach.

 

***

Here’s a player-by-player look at the KC Peppers team with comments by Coach Eakin:

— OF Cassidy Berry (2014, SIU Edwardsville)
“She’s intense, but Cassidy isn’t flashy, she’s just really steady, but not afraid to leave her feet.  She plays full bore all the time. Her sister, Carleigh, played for me and went to Iowa State. ”

— 3B/SS Paige Bange (2014, Missouri)
“Last year Paige played for the Huntsville Ala. team and was recommended by one of our coaches because she can field and hit really well.”

— OF Brooklin Hinz (2014, Kentucky)
“Brooklin’s a pitcher in high school but will play outfield in college.  She’s a heck of a hitter and can crush the ball–it comes off the bat different, she’s so strong.  Brooklin can really drive the ball.”

— P Hailey Reed (2016, uncommitted)
“Hailey just turned 15 in the middle of August, she’s a pitcher and also a good outfielder and is fast and can run.  She’s coming up from 14U so she’ll be making a big adjustment but we’re counting on her to pitch.  She’s throwing in the low 60’s right now.”

— OF Samantha Stallbaumer (2015, uncommitted)
“Samantha is going to be a junior and when she tried out for a younger Peppers team was told to try out for our team.  We put the stopwatch on her and her times to first were 2.6, 2.5 and 2.4 seconds. She was a righty and is now hitting left.  Samantha’s athletic and has played tennis and basketball too.”

— 2B/SS Elizabeth Leonard (2014, Bradley)
“Elizabeth led the team in hitting and is a terrific all-round player and is also a great baserunner.”

— C/1B Maddie McCracken (2015, Notre Dame)
“Maddie’s about 5-foot-11 and has a very strong arm and is a good defense catcher. She’s very smart with a GPF well over a 4.0. She hit a three run home run at Premier to win a game for us this summer and the thing about her is she works to get better all the time.”

— P Allison Stewart (2014, Arkansas)
“Stewart has been the Kansas Gatorade Player of the Year two years in a row.  Her meal ticket is pitching, but she’s a good hitter as well.  For example, she hit a grand slam for us at Premier.”

— SS/C Kara Powelson (2015, uncommitted)
“Another new player, Kara’s what I needed at short and catcher.  I like how she played defensively, she’s playing high school ball right now and fills a very important void for us at two positions.”

— 3B Kelsey Wright (2014, Drake)
“Kelsey’s a good, lefty hitter with impressive speed. She plays a tremendous outfield and can line up at either third or second in college.  Kelsey hit about .340 at Premier for us.”

— P Haidyn Bassett (2015, uncommitted)
“Haidyn’s about 5-foot-11, throws in the mid 60’s and can play first base  She played for the 16U Peppers last year and has a good attitude which impressed me at the tryouts.”

 

*****

RECRUITING NEWS:

*** Taylor Becerra, a 2015 shortstop who plays on the Firecrackers–Blanco team, committed to Arizona State last week according to her coach, Jeff Blanco.

“We put on a workout out in Phoenix,” explained Coach Blanco, who lives in Huntington Beach, Calif., “and Arizona State and Arizona came out. She then did go on an unofficial visit to ASU.”

“The way the process went was ASU had to figure out how much money they had available before they could offer Taylor, which they did about a week after the workout.”

“They knew they wanted her,” Blanco continued, “they just wanted to put together the best package.”

So what are the Sun Devils getting in the junior infielder?

“Taylor’s a kid who gets on base,” he coach explains. “She has the full repertoire as a lefty hitter: she can power slap, soft slap, drag bunt and hit for power.  She’s like a defense’s worst nightmare.”

“Defensively, she has soft hands and is also strong and fast.”

 

*** Some other verbals of note:

— 3B/OF Eliyah Flores (2017) of Firecrackers-Brashear to Oklahoma
— 3B/UT Ashley Ruiz (2016), also of the Firecrackers-Brashear to Kentucky
— C Rachel Cullen (2014) from the USA Athletics to Penn… video
— C Amber Nelson (2015) from the So Cal Athletics-Myers to Colorado State… video
— LHP/1B Sydney McLeod (2016) of Mizuno Storm-Beach to Nebraska… video
— C/OF Dominique “Niko” Walker (2015) with American Pastime-SGV to Hawai’i Pacific

 

*** GoldFastpitch.com, run by Kevin Helmick, does a great job tracking verbals… here are some of the recently added ones:

— OF Sydney Parr (2016, Arkansas)… Team Power
— OF Jade Miller (2016, Arkansas)… Texas Glory
— P/INF Caroline Smith (2015, Campbell)… NC Lady Lightning
— 1B/C Kierston Moore (2016, Kentucky)… Atlanta Vipers-Miller
— 3B/1B Miranda Skurla (2014, Lafayette)… Raiders Softball
— C Erika Rozell (2014, Minnesota)… Minnesota Sting
— C/1B Sarah Green (2015, Samford)… Texas Glory
— P Micaela Vierra (2014, Santa Clara)… American Pastime Gold
— 3B/OF Jessica Hallett (2015, Temple)… Lil Saints
— OF Amanda Kulp (2015, Temple)… Rock 18 Gold
— C/SS Monica Taylor (2014, UNC Wilmington)… Team NC Elite

 

*** Finally a great recruiting story of “mistaken identity” around Mallory Harrell, a 2014 1B/P with the Windermere Wildfire-Stutsman team, who has verbally committed to Butler Community College (Division 1 Junior College) in El Dorado, Kan.

Butler has been one of the top JC programs recently and tomorrow we’ll feature the star pitcher from the team last year, Maggie Ham, who’s now at the Univ. of Oklahoma…

We got a great e-mail from her father, Dan Harrell, explaining how the whole situation developed and containing good insights that could be helpful for others in the recruiting search:

“It’s kind of a funny story,” he begins. “We use the CaptainU website as our ‘recruiting guide’ and started last November with a basic search of Division 1 and 2 schools that would be three hours or less away from our home in Amherst, Ohio (we’ve since moved to the Orlando, Fla. area).”

“One of the schools that popped up was BUTLER COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE- Butler, Pennsylvania.”

“As we did with all the schools that we wanted to investigate, we sent them a web-address to check out Mal’s hitting and pitching abilities. Coach Doug Chance responded immediately and said that he loved her left-handed power stroke and right after Christmas break he’d contact us.”

“We spoke in January and he told us to check around with other schools but ‘know, you have a two-year scholarship here with us if you’d like.’ We loved his response and started to investigate BCCC further.  One problem: Doug Chance’s name is nowhere to be found on their web page!”

“A search for ‘Doug Chance, softball’ revealed the shocking news that Butler College is in El Dorado, Kansas!”

“But it also revealed a No. 1 ranking in D-1 JUCO’s and a strong success rating of getting girls to the next level. We followed their season online and Mal was 100 percent into becoming a Grizzly.  We took a little more time to come around because of the distance.”

“Ultimately, after visiting the campus and Coach Chance, we were all sold.  This was one of those, ‘this was meant to happen’ moments.”

“I recently accepted a great job offer in Orlando that meant Mal would switch schools right before her senior year. Again, things are meant to happen as West Orange High School is a serious power in Florida with four high D1 commits already. She also tried out and was immediately added to the Windermere Wildfire (Stutsman) roster.  We’ve been so fortunate to have great people cross our paths.”

“Now, we need to focus on our eighth grade son who’s finishing his football season in Amherst with my wife before they come down!”

“P.S. still don’t think CaptainU has corrected the coach on BCCC (Pa.), but it worked out for us!”

— Dan Harrell

 

*****

 

If you’d like to submit information, forward to brentt@studentsports.com.  Also, follow us on twitter at @SS_Softball.