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Craig Mattick: Welcome to another edition of In Play. I'm Craig Mattick. High school softball in South Dakota, now entering its third year as a sanctioned sport. In fact, the number of high school softball teams continues to grow. Right now, there are 17 schools in AA, 18 in Class A, 28 in Class B. Now, today we're going to talk with two longtime coaches of softball in the state. Plus, we'll talk to a coach who played the game before high school, in high school, in college, and now coaching softball at her alma mater. Softball has been a big part of our guest's life for a long time. First as a player, even before high school, played high school ball, then played college softball on the D-1 level and now coaching softball at her alma mater. Someone who is passionate about the sport of softball, the Brookings Bobcat, the SDSU Jackrabbit, and the head softball coach at Brookings, Emma Hardin. Emma, welcome to In Play.
Emma Hardin: Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Craig Mattick: Do you remember the first time you watched a softball game as a kid?
Emma Hardin: The first time I watched a game, I think, the first time I remember watching was a Brookings Blast Fastpitch game, and they were 18 and under, and that was... I remember the pitcher was Stacey Lamp at the time, and she's a Brookings girl. And I remember watching her pitch, and that's when I knew, I was like, "Oh, I want to be like her someday."
Craig Mattick: What do you remember about playing softball as a kid? You're just starting out playing the game. It was certainly before you played high school, but what do you remember about playing the game and learning the game?
Emma Hardin: Yeah. So my childhood, I played in Brookings until I was 11 years old, and then I knew I wanted something more. I knew that softball was kind of my thing. At the time, I just needed something more than what Brookings had to offer. And so I found the Renegades through the help of Bill Kratz, and he introduced me to the Renegades, and he was my coach in Brookings. And then so I found the Renegades as a 12 and under player and really just fell in love with the style of play, the coaching, the competitiveness. So we played a lot of softball as a 12, 13, 14, all the way up until 18 and under. We played year-round. We were always on the field in the summer. We actually had eight to 10-hour practice days. As a 12-year-old, that's a long time.
Craig Mattick: Oh, man.
Emma Hardin: But we loved it, that was our thing. And there was nowhere else my Renegades team would rather be than on the softball field. And so every summer day, we were out there in Sioux Falls.
Craig Mattick: Who influenced you to play softball?
Emma Hardin: My dad. My dad played baseball at South Dakota State when they were still Division II, and so he was very passionate about baseball. He coached baseball and then played himself, and so he was like, "You got to give this softball thing a try." So he definitely was the one that influenced me to start to pick up a ball.
Craig Mattick: Well, did you play any other sports in high school?
Emma Hardin: Yeah. In Brookings, if you are an athlete, you do it all. So I played volleyball in the fall, even though when I was in high school, there was softball in the fall, and I didn't play fall ball for the high school. I still played tournaments with my travel team, but I played volleyball in the fall. And then in the winter, I played basketball. And in the spring, I did track. And so I was a three-sport athlete in high school and then as well as played softball year round. So we were always playing fall ball tournaments for travel teams, and then we were playing dome tournaments in the winter, and then we'd play some spring ball, and so I kept myself very busy.
Craig Mattick: What made the sport of softball so much fun for you?
Emma Hardin: The team. I think that being on a competitive team made it so much fun. I had a family with my team, and I love to compete. I still love to compete. That's why I'm coaching because I am such a competitor. I just thrive off adrenaline and trying to make a game plan and all aspects of the game. That's what I love.
Craig Mattick: Playing Club Softball, I mean, did you spend any time at home in the summer? It always seems all these teams, that's all you're doing is playing ball, which is great.
Emma Hardin: Yeah. A typical week for me in Club Softball, usually on Mondays, we'd either be traveling home from wherever we were on the weekends or that was our off day on a Monday. And so no softball on a Monday. And then Tuesdays, we'd usually be practicing all day long starting at 8:00 in the morning, going until 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon. That was the same thing on Wednesdays and Thursdays. And then some Thursdays, we'd be traveling to a tournament, otherwise we'd be traveling to a tournament on a Friday, and then playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And it was just on repeat every weekend. And then we'd go to those big tournaments in Colorado and California that would be a week long, and we'd just be playing games all week long against really, really great competition. So my summers were very busy.
Craig Mattick: How about a memory or two of some of those tournaments that you played, one that sticks out in your mind, where did you play?
Emma Hardin: One that really sticks out in my mind was... And I was actually just talking to the Roosevelt head coach about this memory because he was coaching against us in the ASA State Tournament. We were 14 and under, playing in the 18 and under state tournament, and we ended up winning the state tournament as 14U, playing at the 18U level, and so that's one that really sticks out in my mind. So we were middle schoolers competing against seniors in high school, so that was a big accomplishment for us in the South Dakota softball world.
And then another one that really sticks out to me is I think we were 16 and under, we were playing in the PGF National Championship, and so we ended up taking second place in the national championship, and we were playing against the Beverly Bandits who was another high-level travel softball team. And at the time, no one knew that South Dakota had softball when we were playing on that stage. And so it was really fun to make a name for ourselves and show them that South Dakota is on the map in the softball world. And so I think that South Dakota is just truly growing in the softball world. And now, there is more of a name of teams in South Dakota.
Craig Mattick: One of those renegade teams that you were on, every one of you guys went on to play college softball. Was that the 14 and under team or was that the other one that you're talking about?
Emma Hardin: There was a core group of us that stayed with each other all the way up and through, but the team that all of us went to play, that was our 18 and under team. Everyone was committed on that team.
Craig Mattick: Oh, boy. Yeah.
Emma Hardin: Yeah, which was awesome. And what's crazy is that when we earned second place at the national championship, at the time, we only had one commit. And so it was funny because we were playing against a team that everyone was committed to. Their pitcher was committed to Michigan. They had commits to Alabama and Oklahoma and all these big-name schools, and we had one commit, and so they were just shocked that this team from South Dakota with one commit could make it this far in the national tournament.
Craig Mattick: You were a pitcher, right? You pitched?
Emma Hardin: Yep, I was.
Craig Mattick: So how much time did you spend perfecting all of your pitches?
Emma Hardin: A lot of time. I don't even know if I could put a time limit on that. Most of my travel ball career, I played center field, and then I got recruited as an outfielder, but they knew I could pitch, and I'm left-handed and so that was a sales point for me too that I-
Craig Mattick: Sure.
Emma Hardin: ... could pitch also. And so when I got to college, Coach Wood was the previous head coach at South Dakota State. She had said that we needed more pitchers, and I was going to be a pitcher only. And so I would still practice outfield, and I hit all the way through my college career, but I really focused just on pitching.
Craig Mattick: What was your best pitch, which was the best one?
Emma Hardin: Curveball. A left-handed curve goes inside to a righty batter, and so they were not expecting that. They thought they were going to get hit.
Craig Mattick: After high school, you choose to play ball at home in Brookings at SDSU. Did you have any other feelers out there?
Emma Hardin: I did. I knew that I did not want to go too far away from home. It was kind of always my dream to be a Jackrabbit, and so I did go on a couple other visits here and there, but in the back of my mind, I kind of knew that South Dakota State was the place for me. I wanted to follow in my dad's footsteps and my mom was a graduate from South Dakota State as well as all of my grandparents. And so in the back of my mind, that was my dream.
Craig Mattick: You mentioned Krista Wood, your coach at SDSU, she was there the whole time you were there. What did she do to make you a better softball player?
Emma Hardin: She really bought into helping me increase my speed as well as my spin. It was crazy in high school, although I was playing softball year round, I was also doing other sports, and so when I got to college and strictly focused on softball all the time, I felt like I got so much better because that was the only thing I had to do besides obviously academics, but I felt like she just really took the time to focus on the little things with my pitching, whether it was posture or grip on the ball or different types of pitches. She really took the time to care about those things with her players.
Craig Mattick: What do you remember the first time going inside the circle for your very first start as a Jackrabbit?
Emma Hardin: I was shaking.
Craig Mattick: You made 14 appearances as a pitcher your freshman year. When did you feel comfortable as a pitcher that first year?
Emma Hardin: I think that knowing that there was a really good defense behind me that helped settle the nerves and knowing that coach believed in me and wanted me to be successful, that was really helpful.
Craig Mattick: Overall, what was your time like playing softball at SDSU?
Emma Hardin: I had a blast. I wouldn't change the memories, the accomplishments of all my team. I wouldn't change that for the world. I still talk to all my teammates and have great relationships with them, and they're going to last a lifetime, so it was an amazing experience.
Craig Mattick: So you're playing softball as a kid in Brookings, and you're playing in Brookings as a college student and now you graduate in 2022. And by golly, Brookings High School has an opening for a softball coach, and you're hired. What did they see in you, Emma?
Emma Hardin: I think that they saw that I got the game. I had played for so long. In my college career, I also... In the summertime, I would coach youth teams where I would give lessons and clinics and all the things, and so I think that they saw that I understood the game, I understood how to help players do the right thing in the right way and how to develop players. I was a little hesitant because I was so young, and I was worried that I'd be too close to their age or they wouldn't accept my coaching strategies or different things because I was so young. Same thing with parents accepting me, not only the players, but they took a chance on me and they wanted me, and so I was really excited to get that job right out of college.
Craig Mattick: Where did your coaching philosophy come from?
Emma Hardin: All my past coaches, Coach Mook had the family concept and doing everything the right way the first time.
Craig Mattick: That was Mike.
Emma Hardin: Yep. Mike Mook, yep. And then as well as Coach Wood. Actually this year with my team, we're reading the book, The Energy Bus. I stole that idea from Coach Wood because I felt like our team culture at SDSU was so strong, and I wanted to carry that on to my team that I'm now coaching. I felt like that was something that we needed more of was culture and buying into each other.
Craig Mattick: That first year as softball coach at Brookings, it's also the first year of sanctioned softball here in South Dakota, and you take the Bobcats to the championship game up in Aberdeen against Lincoln. Did you know going into that season that you might have a pretty good team?
Emma Hardin: I did. I knew that the girls had played together their whole lives. And our pitcher at the time, Gracie Adamson, she threw hard. She could spin the ball. She had a positive attitude no matter what, and she was gritty. She wanted to win, and then we had great defense behind her. We were young a little. We had a couple of young players that were sophomores, and then we had a couple standout seniors as well that were comfortable and had played together a long time.
Craig Mattick: Emma, what's the biggest difference in training for today's softball athletes compared to when you played?
Emma Hardin: When I played in high school, you're going with your club team all the time. It was only club team, only club team. And now, these girls get to work with their club team all summer, all fall, all winter, and then come springtime... In Brookings, we have girls from the Outlaw Program. We have girls that play in Sioux Falls in the summer, and we all get to come together in the spring and work hard together. And so I think that's the biggest difference is that we... And these girls practice every day together, whereas sometimes with travel ball teams, you only get in two practices a week and then you're playing weekend tournaments, whereas the lucky thing with sanctioned softball is we get to play two times a week and practice five days a week or if we don't have games that week. So they're together all the time. They're doing the same things every day, whereas in travel ball, they might not be practicing every day.
Craig Mattick: Couple of more for Emma Hardin here on In Play talking softball this week. What else keeps you busy besides being the softball coach at Brookings?
Emma Hardin: I'm a kindergarten teacher, and so that keeps me very busy.
Craig Mattick: Oh, boy.
Emma Hardin: So I go from 8:00 to 4:00 teaching five and six-year-olds, and then 4:00 to 6:00, I'm coaching 16, 17, 18-year-olds, but my passion really is kindergarten as well as softball, so I do keep myself pretty busy with that.
Craig Mattick: Where do you see high school softball going in the future?
Emma Hardin: I think that we're just going to continue to grow and get better. I have already seen the growth in players and there's a lot of kids that are committed to play at the next level, which was not as heard of when I was playing in high school. And so I think that that's really exciting, especially the kids that are staying local. This year I have two players that are staying local and going to be Jackrabbits, and then I have one player that's going to St. Cloud State and then one that's going to Morningside, and so it's really fun to get to coach kids that are going to the next level too.
Craig Mattick: No matter what level, I mean, the opportunities are super for all these young ladies.
Emma Hardin: Yes, yes.
Craig Mattick: Division II or NEIA, whatever level that they're at, opportunities for them, it's tremendous. And states outside of South Dakota know that we got some pretty good players in this state.
Emma Hardin: Yes, exactly.
Craig Mattick: Hey, let's go out to Burke, South Dakota, South Central part of the state. It's between Winner and Platt, and Bill Becker's a long time softball coach. I mean, he also played the game. He coached a Women's League Team, even coached baseball, but Bill won three state softball championships as a coach, won three in a row with his daughter on the team. And by golly, he even has a field named after him. He's the Buzzard Bill Beckers. Hey Bill, welcome to In Play.
Bill Becker: Well, thank you.
Craig Mattick: So where did the nickname the Buzzard come from?
Bill Becker: Well, that goes way back to childhood. Me and some guy were arguing with each other and he just called, he said, "You're nothing but Buzzard Bait." So for some reason, it stuck. I was Buzzard Bait for a long time and then it got shortened down to Buzzard. Long time back. I think everybody in this country, that's all they know me by Billy "Buzzard" Becker.
Craig Mattick: Your ball playing days though were back in the '60s, weren't they?
Bill Becker: Well, yeah, '60s and '70s. '70s for sure. All through there, we had a Burke Buzzards Fastpitch Men's Team that played a lot of ball. We'd go to tournaments every weekend and probably played a hundred games a year or more in fastpitch, and it was really fun.
Craig Mattick: So how did you get involved with coaching softball?
Bill Becker: Well, it's just like all this stuff goes. Nobody wants to do it and somebody will just have to step up and do it, and I just love the game. To this day, it's still my favorite game of all, so I just took it upon myself to start coaching and one league thing led to another from men's to women's to co-ed the slow pitch and then basically ended up with the girls fastpitch teams, and then I coached that for years. We won three straight in '04, '05, '06 state tournaments. And then 2000, we won one more. So we won four that would've been 18 and under division in Junior Olympic Summer Fastpitch State tournaments, and they're always in Sioux Falls.
Craig Mattick: Those three state straight championships you won, your daughter, Billie Jo was on the team. Of course we know Billie as the head volleyball coach at Burke, but what was it like coaching your daughter with those three straight championships?
Bill Becker: That's probably one of the main reasons I was doing it. I always remember one day before I got too involved with it, she always wanted me to come out and watch her pitch and I said, "I didn't think there's any way she could pitch fastpitch." She drag me off the couch and got out there and she started throwing to me and I said, "Oh, my God. I think we got something here." So then I took big interest in it and she pitched, like I said, those three years in a row, we won it.
She pitched every pitch in the state tournament. The first year we went over there, we lost the first game and coming back through the losers bracket is something else, and it was about 100 degrees all the time. And I think on that Sunday we played five or six games coming all the way back to win it. So I had wet towels thrown over her every time she'd come in and it was something. I said, "We're going to throw you till your arm falls off," and pretty much did. You got pretty slow there towards the end, but it worked and we got it.
Craig Mattick: What was softball like in South Central, South Dakota back in the '70s even going into the '80s?
Bill Becker: On those days, it was just huge. We were talking about exposing [inaudible 00:23:43], it was just huge out here. We had teams of every kind there. Every little town here had a team or two. Some of them had two like Fairfax, Bonesteel, Herrick, Burke, Gregory, Clearfield, if you know where that's at.
Craig Mattick: Yeah, I do.
Bill Becker: Colome had teams, Winner. It was just huge, and it was kind of the time before cell phones and other things that they have to do now. They didn't have to go to all these camps and stuff in those days every summer for basketball and volleyball. All the girls were just into it hugely.
Craig Mattick: Who were some of the teams that were the rivals for Burke when you were coaching?
Bill Becker: Well, naturally, there was two teams in Burke and the two Burke teams would be the rivalries of all, but then Gregory's really close and basically in our league there was about 10 teams up and down the line and they were all really good, and they all worked at it and had plenty of players and it was all really rivalry with every one of them.
Craig Mattick: So what were the summers like because it sounds like tournaments virtually every weekend and travel. How busy was your summer?
Bill Becker: It was busy. It just took up all my time. I always said I wish then I would've had a cell phone like we do now. All we had was a home phone. Everything was long distance. And when you'd call, nobody was home, but it was really, really busy all the time. We'd play at least two games a week in league play, so then I'd be doing the men's and the women's and all these girls coaching baseball long line. I coached most like Teeners and Legion and Talent Team baseball for a few years too, but my love was a softball.
Craig Mattick: What was the training like? What did you do to make those girls better softball players?
Bill Becker: Well, basically, just had a lot of practice and I never had any trouble getting them out there. We'd work two or three nights a week with a practice. And when I'd get done, there'd be three or four girls or more always come up after practice, and they'd want more grounders and more flies. So in them days, they were really, really into it, and that's why we were so good. They wanted to play.
Craig Mattick: Of those girls you coached, did a number of them get a chance to go play college softball down the road?
Bill Becker: Oh, yes. There's several of them did. Billy Jo did and Lenille Lamley went over and played, the Stokie girls did. There were several of them played college ball out here.
Craig Mattick: Any of those coaching softball today?
Bill Becker: Not really much anymore. I hate to say it, but out here in the West River and softball is kind of dying out on if there's just too much other things going on. It breaks my heart to see that we still have a huge, smaller, younger. They have 8, 10 and 12-year-old girls and they have a lot of those.
Craig Mattick: Yeah, your daughter Billie Jo played, but she chose to coach the volleyball right now and doing a pretty good job, isn't she?
Bill Becker: She really is.
Craig Mattick: So you coached your daughter and you've also coached your granddaughters. How did that feel the first time that you were coaching the granddaughters in softball?
Bill Becker: Well, that was fun and exciting. It made me a lot really proud. Addison Endel and Taley, her older sister. They were really, really good volleyball players. Addison just loved the game. They were both good pitchers and just do it all and that kept me into it more than anything probably.
Craig Mattick: What have you seen as the biggest improvement in the game of softball over the past 20 years?
Bill Becker: Well, I suppose just having more and more tournaments and things like this. I really like the idea that they've got high school going and that's probably only been in, what? The last five years, but I just love to see they made that a high school sport now, and I would give anything if they'd had it back in the day when we were so good because our girls wanted to play so bad. That's one of the biggest things that they do. It's just a sport that everybody can do and just girls love it.
Craig Mattick: You didn't have to recruit very many players. There was a lot of interest in the game back when you were coaching at Burke.
Bill Becker: Oh, yes. There was. Well, like I say, we had Billie Joe and Heidi Frank. There was Megan Duran and Taylor Handell. It's hard to say to name them that far back like that. There was a lot of them. Jenna Drei was great. She went on to play college softball up in Aberdeen. It was really good. Abby DeWolf, Billie Jo played fastpitch. She pitched up in Madison, South Dakota at the college there. And she was the pitcher most valuable player of the year that she was nominated afterwards. They weren't real successful with it, but she pitched, and I went up and helped them coach a little bit because they were shorthanded. That was fun too.
Craig Mattick: About six or seven years ago, you got surprised by having a field named after you. What happened?
Bill Becker: Well, that was a big surprise. I was out coaching then that night and I was running around getting the field ready for the second game and this was all going on and I didn't really realize what was happening until finally somebody dragged me out there and that was really an honor. Actually, I built that field way back in the early '70 myself because we needed another field, but it was quite an honor to do that and I was really, really surprised. They did a good thing with it.
Craig Mattick: Softball is seeing growth around the state, Bill, but is there a chance for growth of softball in South Central, South Dakota?
Bill Becker: Well, I think there probably will be being they finally got the state stuff going with the schools. Winner does have one team that's about the only team out here that has a club team or a school team, whatever you want to call it, and I'm thinking that it's going to. I'm hoping all these young people in Burke that we have the 8, 10 and 12s, they got so many of them that they'll keep an interest in that. That's what we're all hoping, and they'll just come up and keep going instead of dropping off like they have been here.
Craig Mattick: Well, you're 81 Bill, how long did you play softball?
Bill Becker: I played until I was into my 60s. I just actually played until they just didn't have any more left out here. I could still pitch good at 60, believe it or not. I could still throw hard at 60 years old.
Craig Mattick: I bet you could do it still today, Bill.
Bill Becker: I think I could. I might pay the price for it.
Craig Mattick: Dale Goetschius has been involved with softball for many years. He's been involved with the South Dakota Renegades, a club softball team for a lot of years. Dale, welcome to In Play. When did you first get involved with the Renegades?
Dale Goetschius: Well, we started kind of coming up with the idea of the Renegades in 2011. We had several people in Sioux Falls that we knew that we were doing lessons with Michael Mook at Augustana. At that time, we approached him and asked what his interest was. Originally, the Minnesota Renegades were up and running in Minneapolis and he was involved with that briefly and just saw that it was a quality organization, and we really wanted to model something like that in Sioux Falls. So myself and a few other dads got together and talked about it, and it was kind of started that way.
Craig Mattick: I think you had a daughter involved with softball, is that when dad stepped up to help coach?
Dale Goetschius: Yeah, exactly.
Craig Mattick: I know a lot of dads who become softball coaches because they have a daughter who wants to play the sport.
Dale Goetschius: Right, yeah. A lot of dads when their kids are 9, 10, 11 years old tend to volunteer and get involved, and I grew up playing softball, slow pitch softball, so I obviously understood the game a little bit. The fastpitch was a little bit new to me, but it was intriguing. It's a fun sport. It's a fast sport, so it was easy to move right into that.
Craig Mattick: What was softball like here in South Dakota back 25 years ago?
Dale Goetschius: I think the big thing from a club program perspective, there really wasn't a lot of opportunity. There were a couple of main clubs in Sioux Falls. You had the South Dakota Fusion, you had the Diamonds were the two predominant larger clubs and a little bit more organized and structured. Then you also had the Daredevils out of Brandon that had some good things going, so it was not a lot of options and when we looked at that, we wanted to bring a higher quality. And when we were working with Coach Mook, he was an excellent trainer and had a vision as well, really wanted to improve the opportunities for girls in Sioux Falls.
Craig Mattick: What hooked you into the game?
Dale Goetschius: I think just for me it was be involved with my daughter, watching her learn and have the desire to play and also when we started this program, the people that were involved, some of the other parents were great people and fun to be around and all were very passionate and wanted their daughters to be successful, so that was really what helped move our direction. Everybody was on board, and it was just really easy to get started.
Craig Mattick: Well, it becomes a family atmosphere too, amongst all the parents and the coaches and the players, no doubt.
Dale Goetschius: Oh, absolutely. That helps.
Craig Mattick: The Renegades, they have had success in tournaments on the state, on the region, on the national level. What kind of memories stand out on some of those teams over years past with that success?
Dale Goetschius: I think a lot of it is we started the program and the team stuck together. One of the key parts when we started this team is everybody stayed on board. And year after year, the girls just kept getting better and so we had to search for more competition and our goal was always to play at a high level, and it wasn't uncommon for us to go to Chicago, Crown Point, Indiana. We were in Oklahoma City, so we moved to some of those bigger tournaments and then we're fortunate that we would qualify and end up at Huntington Beach, California. So we're lucky to play a lot of the great teams in the nation. Probably what stands out the most, the one year we did get selected to play the Women's Junior National Fastpitch Team down in Oklahoma City, so we played on the same fields that the College World Series has played on.
Craig Mattick: Nice.
Dale Goetschius: So that was a wonderful experience and that followed up a prior year of getting second place in the national tournament, so we had a great run for a couple of years and that was a lot of fun.
Craig Mattick: Was that like 2013 or '14?
Dale Goetschius: That would've been in the 2016, '17.
Craig Mattick: Okay. I know a few years before that the Renegades wound up having 13 players on the roster who went on to play softball at the collegiate level. In fact, I think your daughter was one of those players.
Dale Goetschius: Yeah. She was one. Our first team all 15. We picked up couple girls at the end, all 15 of those players went on to play college softball.
Craig Mattick: That's awesome.
Dale Goetschius: Several Division I level, and so that was exciting. Year-to-date with the Renegades, we put almost 50 kids into college opportunities.
Craig Mattick: Like your daughter played in Northern Illinois, right, I think?
Dale Goetschius: Yeah. She played in Northern Illinois and then COVID happened and ended up transferring to North Dakota State and finished her last two years at NDSU.
Craig Mattick: Of course. We've talked to Emma Hardin from Brookings, the coach up there. She was on that team as well. What do you remember about the way Emma played the game?
Dale Goetschius: Emma was just a kid that always smiled and always worked hard. At that time, she pitched for us when she went into college. She pitched a little bit and was primarily more outfield, but just a great batter, just a fun person to be around and it was a hard worker.
Craig Mattick: But how great is it when you coach a young athlete no matter what sport is in and they wind up going to college with it, and man, they're taking that skills and being a coach in the game. How great is that?
Dale Goetschius: Well, it's fun. I think a lot of our philosophy was we always wanted to try to give back and when we had our Renegades team, especially Emma's team, we did a lot of small town clinics. We did some in Alexandria, Minnesota. We did some in Beresford. We did a few in Sioux Falls and really just wanted to get younger kids involved and kind of get that fire lit for them to play, and it was one of those things that when you're teaching a game, you're learning more about it as well, so it kind of reinforces what you're doing.
Craig Mattick: South Dakota Softball has been sanctioned now. We're in our third year in South Dakota. The number of teams have exploded since being sanctioned. But Dale, I'm kind of curious, how much did the high schools have to work with club softball teams or maybe even vice versa on accommodating a high school sanctioned softball season and then have a club softball season in the same year?
Dale Goetschius: Sure. I don't know if there was a whole lot of work, at least from my direction. I think prior to that when that was still a club sport at the high school level, it was in the fall, so it wasn't as convenient for the players because a lot of those players were doing other sports and then also for competitive softball. There's a lot of college recruitment opportunities and tournaments back then, but now that it's been a sanctioned sport, it's started to pick up some momentum and grow, and so it's good to see girls today have that opportunity to represent their school, and a lot of these girls sometimes are on the same travel ball teams.
Craig Mattick: That's true. Yeah.
Dale Goetschius: And then also to play competitively against each other. They build a lot more friendships that way too.
Craig Mattick: Of course, a big plus I think on the club side. These girls are getting 15 to 20 games in before the club season starts, so they're ready to go once the club season's underway.
Dale Goetschius: Yeah, that's probably one of the advantages is girls are playing. Unfortunately, sometimes you may be run into an injury or overuse with some pitching, but I think the big thing is keeping the girls active and they're ready to go once... They literally, after that state softball tournament, most of those teams start playing the weekend after.
Craig Mattick: How would you describe the talent level of softball here in South Dakota and comparing it to our neighboring states?
Dale Goetschius: I think it's improving and growing. There's been some great softball players that have come out of this area in this region the last probably six, seven years. So I think things have improved and there's more and more opportunities, equipment gets better, training gets better, so I think things are improving. Certainly, there's opportunities regionally. Kids that are in the South typically have a lot longer opportunity to play outside in the Midwest and South Dakota especially. You're limited sometimes by winters, and there just isn't a lot of good options locally for indoor practices in play. Many times we would travel up to Minneapolis because they have seven different domes up there and whole some indoor tournaments, so there's those options there.
Craig Mattick: Has there been any girls who have played for Team USA in softball or even getting a chance to be on an Olympic team? Have we gotten there yet?
Dale Goetschius: We haven't had any. We've had a couple players pretty close. We did have one Renegade that played in the College World Series. Ali Lindner played for Minnesota in 2019 when they made their World Series appearance. We do have a couple of former renegades that are in the college playoffs right now. Abby Duchscherer, which is out of, excuse me, Kindred North Dakota. She plays for Alabama. She was a renegade for several years, and so she'll be playing too this weekend.
Craig Mattick: I'm assuming we're seeing more girls playing club and high school softball who are getting a better chance today to play softball in college. Would that be true?
Dale Goetschius: Yeah, I think so. I mean, when you look at all the opportunities that high school kids have, softball, I think if girls apply themselves to work hard, I think there's just as much opportunity to get a college scholarship in that sport as other sports. You've got a larger roster, so schools are typically... Most college teams have 20 to 24 girls on a team, and so there's more opportunities I think from the softball world.
Craig Mattick: Being involved with softball, what does that do for the student athlete? What kind of a person does it make him when they're involved in softball?
Dale Goetschius: Sure. I think, at least from my experience, it makes a disciplined person. A lot of collegiate sports, they require a lot of these girls. The work that it takes to get to that college level, and then it gets moved to even a higher level of doing their workouts. A lot of it's time management, so being a student athlete certainly I think really pushes the girls to be much more organized, better time managers. Looking at the girls we've had in our program that have been through college, a lot of them are getting great degrees, whether it's in the healthcare system, accounting, business, teaching, so they're very well-rounded people and good time managers.
Craig Mattick: One thing I really like about the game, and it's the defensive side where the situations runners at first and second one out, where are you going to go if it's hit to you? And that is instilled in every single player out there on the field, and for the most part, I love the defensive effort of all these teams.
Dale Goetschius: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's a very defensive game and it's a fast paced game. You really need to kind of be on your toes, know where you're going to go if you get the ball. Every situation's a little bit different and certainly the field, the ground will find you. If you're not ready, you'll have a bad hop. But certainly, I think the big thing is just, it's a mental game. You got to be thinking all the time knowing what you're doing.
Craig Mattick: Last one for you, Dale, when it comes to watching high school softball in South Dakota, you're on the club side though. What do you like? Where do you see happening with high school softball in South Dakota?
Dale Goetschius: I like to see the growth of it. It's giving the opportunities to the players. Certainly, it's a passionate game and the kids that want to represent their school and teammates and different things, certainly, it's providing more opportunities for those girls, and that's probably the biggest thing.
Craig Mattick: In Play with Craig Mattick is made possible by Horton in Britton, where smiling at work happens all the time. Apply now at hortonwww.com. If you like what you're hearing, please give us a five star review wherever you get your podcast. It helps us gain new listeners. This has been In Play with me, Craig Mattick. This is a production of South Dakota Public Broadcasting.
