By OUBeliever Copied from old board
Extra Innings Softball completed their rankings of the Class of 2022 today. This class will graduate next May and walk onto college campus in August of 2022 to join their teams. The next big event for them will be their official signing of the National Letter of Intent to attend collage at their chosen school in November this year.
The 2022 rankings were very different IMO. Normally their is no too much movement in the rankings and not many new faces or players that reach the top levels of the rankings from one year to the next. This year is different. I will have more information about that during the next week or so.
For today, I wanted to give credit to the players with Oklahoma team links and make sure their names are out there for their benefit.
The players that are linked to Oklahoma-based summer programs are listed below.. This is as many as I remember being in the Top 100 in the last several years. Congrats to all of them.
#T-100 - Gabrielle Higbee, OF, Oklahoma Angels – Yeatts - (No college chosen)
#T-98 - Chloe Yeatts, C/1B, Oklahoma Angels – Yeatts - (Stephen F Austin)
#T-79 - Lily West, C, Oklahoma Angels – Yeatts – (Stephan F Austin)
#T-66 - Tori Miller, P, Oklahoma Athletics – Madden – (Coastal Carolina)
#T-49 - Ashanti McDade, P, Oklahoma Angels – Yeatts – (Cal – Berkley)
#T-43 - Lexi McDonald, 3B/1B, Oklahoma Athletics – Madden – (Oklahoma State)
In addition to that list I wanted to provide the players that are committed to the Oklahoma Sooners that were in the 'Top 100' also.
#T-20 - Savannah Geurin, LHP, Texas Bombers – Smith - (Oklahoma)
Savannah is 5-foot-10 lefty with some of the top spins in the senior class. As Coach Scott Smith explains, “In the day of everyone throwing hard, not as many can spin it like ‘SJ’ can. She gets people out throwing 62-63 mph and is very Cat Osterman-like in how she can carve you up.” Savannah’s strengths are her accuracy and command of multiple pitches, which continues to grow in terms of effectiveness. Her stuff is “dirty and difficult to handle,” according to her coach. One highlight was beating the outstanding Athletics – Mercado 18U team at Top Club in Oklahoma’s stadium where she will soon be pitching. Making her also effective is her ability to use her off-speed stuff to buckle knees; SJ isn’t afraid to throw the curve in on right-handers’ hands either while being able to go up and down in the zone.
#T-10—Jocelyn Erickson, C/1B, OC Batbusters – Stith (Oklahoma)
Jocelyn recently returned from a devastating knee injury where she tore her ACL but she’s back and playing primarily at first base right now. Said one observer, “Her return has shown why she was so missed by the team last season.” The Sooner commit has a great arm and a big power bat. She’s 5-foot-11 and uses her bat speed to generate power. Batbusters head coach Mike Stith called her a “scary good player, an historic-type player, who has a great knowledge of the game and the potential to be transcendent in the sport.” Jocelyn comes from a strong softball family as older sisters Kaylee and Emilee play at BYU. In 2019, Jocelyn’s first at Sandra Day O’Connor (Phoenix, Arizona) High, she helped the team win the 6A state championship as she batted .530 and led the Eagles with 50 RBIs in 30 games. The plan according to coaches is for the senior to work her back into catching over the Fall and get back into playing behind the dish by the Spring/Summer of 2022.
#T-6—Avery Hodge, SS, Texas Bombers – Smith (Oklahoma)
Avery does everything at a plus level in that she can field, slap, run with great speed (2.6 seconds home to first) and “lives on base” per one top level club coach. “She gives whatever teams she’s on a variety of options.” Avery is a two-time selection for Team USA’s Jr. National Team because of her defensive prowess but also because she’s a protype leadoff hitter who, in 181 at-bats over the summer had 15 extra base hits, 47 steals and only 15 strikeouts. The lefty has surprising strength and fluidity on the defensive side too and whatever is hit to her sticks to her hands like glue. She almost never bobbles the ball; one college coach commented: “She has hands like a video game.” Because of her defensive skills, Avery has been compared to Washington’s Sis Bates. “Two years ago, the infielder played for Team USA’s U-17 squad that won the Pan American Championship by beating Mexico 2-0 and in the game Avery had two hits. “Avery’s softball IQ is unparalleled,” says Coach Scott Smith, head of the Bombers organization. “The bottom line with her is she is a winner and makes everyone around her better.” The standout speedster was offered in September of 2017 at an Oklahoma Camp and committed verbally the next day.
#1—Kierston Deal, LHP, Mojo – Fisher (Oklahoma)
Let’s just put this out there and get it over with: for every headline from now on until the rest of softball eternity, anytime a headline writer uses the phrase “Real Deal” when describing Kierston Deal, a dollar needs to be added to my kid’s college education fund.
With that over with, we can move on to the business at hand: Kierston is… The. Real… errr… Story of this Senior class. Phew… “Deal” with that!
Seriously, the reason this is an anomaly—the first time I can ever remember a player going from not ranked to #1—is simple… 18 months ago, when we did the penultimate ranking for the 2022 class, she wasn’t anywhere to be found. At least as far as being on the national ranking scene or even on our radar.
She was playing, but not at the intense level she is now, working out with a trainer and pitching coach regularly as well as her Mojo – Fisher team that travels the nation playing in top events.
And here we are today… and what a difference a year makes.
It’s not like Kierston didn’t have the support or a model to follow. Her mother, Michelle Deal, played basketball and softball for Louisburg College, a private two-year school in Louisburg, North Carolina, though she was an infielder in softball.
“To tell my age,” she laughs, “when I went off to college, it was the very first year of fastpitch softball in North Carolina.”
Kierston is from Winston Salem, North Carolina, and plays for East Forsyth High in Kernersville. With the COVID pandemic shutting everything down in 2020, it didn’t really give the softball world a chance to see the lefty pitcher in action, but once softball got cranked up again, so did she and so did the “wow” factor—including the reaction she got from college coaches and scouts.
Word quickly spread about the Carolina lefty who threw in the mid-60’s with a good changeup and, by last December, she committed to South Carolina; however, in time she would open up her recruiting again.
In the Spring, the pitcher showed how dominating she could be at the high school level as she had 292 K’s in 136 innings and recorded a 0.64 ERA for the Eagles, leading her to be named the Central Piedmont Conference Pitcher of the Year and ultimately earning Kierston Extra Inning Softball 1st Team High School All-American honors.
Then, the fun began as she had an even more impressive summer, throwing 119.2 innings and recording 201 strikeouts versus only 17 walks (an 11 K average per seven innings). She had a 0.79 ERA for the Summer and a WHIP of .652 and saved her best for last.
At PGF Nationals, the pitcher averaged a game per day—62 total innings—but gave up just two earned runs for the entire event with a 0.22 ERA and allowed only a .121 batting average against her.
She also showed what she could do with the bat, hitting .302 with six doubles as a line drive hitter with power to all fields.
Some would say she’s not as proven or has done it at the 16U level primarily—true, and she was the 2021 Extra Inning Softball All-Summer Team MVP— but those who have tracked her closely over the last year see that the ceiling is very, very high and the best is yet to come.
Kierston does have unfinished business as she and her Mojo team haven’t yet taken home the trophy so there’s motivation for this, her final year of high school and club ball, to win a title.
“KD is a fierce competitor,” says her club coach, Josh Fisher, “and she is a winner both on and off the field. She is a team-me kid and is very well-deserving of all of the accolades. In our opinion, she is very, very deserving (based off of the body of work and on-the-field performances) of the No. 1 ranking in the 2022 class.”
“Although our team fell short (at PGF),” Coach Fisher continues, “in both of the games she started versus the Hotshots-Nelson team–which I consider one of, if not the, best hitting club in America— Kierston was absolutely terrific against them.”
“In the semifinals at PGF, she twirled a shutout through seven complete innings and finished that game going eight complete innings, giving up three hits, no earned runs, and striking out six. In the championship game, she went seven innings, allowing one earned run, struck out six, while only walking one and giving up just six hits.”
“In those two games,” Fisher concludes, “she went 15 innings, giving one earned run, striking out 12. We think she is the best in this country in this class.
So too do many top college and club coaches and scouts we’ve talked to… and that’s why she’s the #1 ranked player in the Class of 2022. You could almost say that Kierston is the REAL… ummm… future of college pitching.
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Geurin, Erickson and Hodge have been commits to the Sooners for several years. They all three have been ranked in the 'Top 10' and/or 'Top 20' during those years. The threesome has been the basis of a class that has been expected to provide a strong LHP for the Sooners, a versatile LH catcher and/or 1B with a big bat for the Sooners and a future slick fielding lead-of hitter that possibly plays SS or 2B for the Sooners. Geurin, Erickson and Hodge are on course to do just those things.
The surprise is Kiersten Deal in the class. About a month ago when it was released that she had de-committed from South Carolina and decided to play for the Sooners it was a big story in the D1 softball world. She is a late-blooming LHP and hitter that has catapulted herself up the rankings as mentioned above in the last 18 months. For her to go from unranked in 2020 to being the #1 ranked player in October of 2021 is amazing and unheard of. That is all described above. Deal gives the Sooners a second LHP pitcher that will be in the circle for the 2023 spring season. This will also mean that for now, the Sooners have had the #1 ranked pitcher in the class for 2 years in a row following Jordyn Bahl in the Class of 2021 and the 3rd #1 player of the Class by including Jayda Coleman in 2020. BTW, Hansen was the former #1 in the Class of 2019 until the final class rankings when she dropped to #9 due to injuries.
With a class of the #1 player (Deal), the #T-6 player (Hodge), the #1-10 plyer (Erickson) and the #T-20 player (Geurin) the Sooners will receive immediate help next year from these freshman. Adding these four players to the list of already excellent players that are on the diamond for the Sooners, all things once again are looking up for OU. This is not the strongest class of recent classes for the Sooners but their is certainly quality and probably just what the Sooners needed in this class. The Classes of 2019, 2020 and 2021 have added players like Hansen, Boone, Donihoo, McAdoo, Coleman, Jennings, May, Bahl, Nugent, T Coleman and Lilio as a tremendous base for the Class of 2022 to be added to the Sooner program.
I believe that Softball America is going to update their rankings for the 2022 Class between now and next August.
Boomer Sooner!
https://extrainningsoftball.com/the-fin ... t-22-2021/
