We roll up our sleeves today and dive into some team updates from programs in California and North Carolina, recap how a Florida star committed to an SEC power and hit some other recruiting notes…

 

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OC BATBUSTERS X 2

It’s becoming a little more clear what the status is with the teams involved in the OC Batbuster and Team Mizuno-Stith merger.

First, there will be two teams: the OC Batbusters-Haning and the OC Batbusters-Stith with the Mizuno name to be put in their somewhere, perhaps something like the Mizuno Batbusters (note: we’re hearing the coaches aren’t too fond of “powered by Mizuno” being attached to the name so the final name is still to be decided).

In essence, the Gary Haning-led team will be comprised of most of the team from Team Mizuno-Stith last year with a few additions we’ll highlight below.

Just know that this team will likely have the top pitching staff in the nation with Taylor McQuillin (2015, uncommitted) from last year’s OC Batbusters-Haning squad teaming with Kaley Winegarner (2015, Stanford) and Kaylee Carlson (2014, North Carolina) who were with Team Mizuno-Stith.

Coming over with McQuillin from the Batbusters of this past year will be two 2014 Oregon State commits: OF Alysha Everett and IF McKenna Arriola.

The Stith team will be made up of younger players from the Mizuno organization with the top pitcher looking like it will be Mariah Lopez, who led her Team Mizuno-Campbell team to the PGF 14U championship.

We’ll update the final rosters on both teams soon.

Til then, here are the four outside players who will be on the OC Batbusters-Haning team:

— OF Natalie Peters (2015, Michigan)
See yesterday’s Daily Update 08.26.13 for more info

— C Madeline Jelenicki (2014, UCLA)
Played on So Cal Choppers last year

— 3B Tannon Snow (2015, Arizona State)
Played on the PGF 18U Premier National Champion So Cal A’s last year

— CF/SS/2B Taylon Snow (2017, uncommitted)
Sister of Tannon, she’s going to be a freshman and played shortstop for the So Cal A’s 14U last year

 

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BUSY TIME FOR THE NC LADY LIGHTNING PROGRAM

*** The NC Lady Lightning program, lead by Coach John Corn, will have a busy week preparing for its sponsored tournament, The Next Level, which takes place this Friday through Sunday

There will be a skills camp on Saturday and on Sunday the players will be broken down into eight or nine teams to play games and receive instruction from coaches at programs such as Florida State, North Carolina, Mississippi State, James Madison, Campbell, Coastal Carolina and others.

If that’s not enough to keep Coach Corn and his staff hopping, they’re in the midst of finalizing players for their nine teams, which includes four national programs:  a “future’s” team, two elite younger teams and the NC Lady Lightning Gold-Miken squad that has all committed kids.

One of the elite teams will have recently committed P/IF Janelle Zellars (see below for write-up) as well as sisters Montana and Mia Davidson, the 2016 and 2017 grads, respectively, who are headed to Mississippi State.

The LL Gold-Miken team, according to Coach Corn, “lost a lot of juice as we have to replace Samantha Runyon and other great seniors as well as 40 home runs from last year’s team.”

To this point, there are four who have been finalized on the roster… here they are with comments from the coach:

— P Holly Ward (2014, Mississippi State)
“We played last weekend in Birmingham (Ala.) with her and she was impressive.  Holly played with the Tennessee Fury last year and is a power pitcher with good up and down movement on her pitches.”

— OF Kara Schutt (2014, Elon)
“Kara plays all three outfield positions and she possesses great range on defense and is a lefty power hitter, a gap hitting kid.”

— IF/OF Kaina Sherlund (2015, North Carolina)
“Kaina is a very fast lefty who runs in the 2.6 range.  She’s just a dynamic kid.”

— P Megan Good (2014, James Madison)
“Megan is another power pitcher who throws in the 60’s.  She’s also another outstanding offensive player who brings power to our team, we’re hoping she and Kara (Schutt) can add pop to our lineup.”

 

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RECRUIT SPOTLIGHT: Lily Mann

This morning we ran our complete verbal list of over 1,100 current verbals for the Classes of ’14, 15, ’16 and ’17.

One of the most recent is 2015 OF Lily Mann, who got to commit on Friday, August 9 to her dream school, the Univ. of Florida.

She played for the Gold Coast Hurricanes-DeFelice 16U team this summer and, from all accounts we’ve heard, tore it up in her stops all over the nation, be it Denver, Tahoe and Sunnyvale.  Her future is probably in the outfield due to her good range and arm.  Scouts also said they like how she reacts to the ball.

Lily, a 5-foot-9 speedy slaphitter, plays for Harmony (Fla.) High School where she batted .506 for the 7A school and was one of the top hitters in the state.

She’s also a standout student with a 4.2 GPA on a 4.0 scale (due to several AP classes).

We spoke to her father, Kevin, today and he walked us through how the whole verbal process went.

“Lily’s mother, Debbie, and I both went to Florida,” he began, “and we’ve always been a Gator family, so that was Lily’s dream school.”

“She had been e-mailing (Head) Coach (Tim) Walton and staff at Florida before she started in ninth grade and was making phone calls starting her sophomore year.  Lily had also been to three of their pitching and hitting camps so they knew who she was pretty much.”

“We went to a camp at the Univ. of Alabama this June and and decided—Lily and I—that we should stop on the drive home in Tallahassee to visit Florida State and also in Gainesville.”

“We never actually talked to anybody, we just left messages and emails saying we’d be coming through at a certain time and happened to find out that Florida had a camp that Thursday that was just ending.  We left a message saying we’d be coming through at 1 pm and to the coaches said, ‘Hope you can make time.’  As the camp was just finishing up, we waited in stands while the campers got pictures and said their goodbyes.”

“Coach Walton pointed at us and called us down to the field and we had a very good talk.  He said he was talking to our coach (Tiffany Defelice) and she had been telling him good things.”

‘I’ll watch you over the summer and at the end we’ll talk,’ he told Lily and she said back, ‘Thank you coach, that’s more than fair. Just give me a shot.’”

Kevin with the story saying the Florida coaches came to New Jersey, Denver, Lake Tahoe and at the ASA Nationals in Sunnyvale watched Lily for at least a day.

“She lite it up at Tahoe,” the athlete’s father continued, “and Coach Walton was there.  Lily had a great tournament.”

“She called him later and he told her, ‘After nationals call me and we’ll have a really good talk.’”

“We got home and set up a day to go up there to meet—just him, me, my wife and Lily. We had a great tour, saw the weight room, met with the academics adviser and talked for probably two to three hours.”

“Coach Walton said, ‘What do you think?’  She answered, ‘There’s not much to think about, this is where I want to be.’”

“He responded, ‘We’ll have a No. 47 for you and we consider you verbally committed.’” And that was how she committed.”

“It’s a dream come true,” Kevin concluded. “We just tell her, ‘That’s a ways away—enjoy the journey through high school first.’”

 

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VERBAL UPDATES

*** One of the younger players in the NC Lady Lightning program, 2016 P/1B Janelle Zellars, recently committed to Virgina.

New Cavalier Head Coach Blake Miller has been watching Zellars, according to Lightning coach John Corn, and liked what he saw.

“Coach Miller came to watch her on her 16U team at PGF this summer,” Coach Corn said today, “as well at ASA Nationals. Janelle throws the ball extremely well with a lot of movement and she’s a very athletic kid who does as much as a hitter as she does as a lefty pitcher.”

“We’re debating if we want to bring her up to the Gold Miken team or keep her with the younger group where she could help the other kids too.”

*** Last week we reported that lefty 2015 OF Aspyn Novak of the Beverly Bandits had committed to Dayton… she wrote us to tell us why she’s going to be a Flyer.

“I did commit to Dayton,” she told StudentSportsSoftball.com.  “I chose Dayton because I loved the coaches and the campus.”

“Also, I really wanted my family to be able to see me play and Dayton is close enough that they can do that! This year I am staying down on 16’s.”

Novak attends Lake Central High School located in St. John, Ind. which is about four hours away by car.

 

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SAMANTHA PUENTES A MONTH AWAY FROM EUGENE

We reached out via Twitter to 2013 IF Samantha Puentes (@samanthapuente1), who had played for the Sorcerer’s-Mumma team out of NorCal and had committed to Oregon, and asked if she was still going to play for the Ducks as there had been some talk she wasn’t there right now for school.

She confirmed that was true, but tweeted: “no I’m still in Hollister. Won’t be in Eugene till late September.”

So add another piece to what looks like are some outstanding players head to Coach Mike White’s program.

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