Coaches Corner for June 24th: Gabe Dunn, Madrid Softball

joining us on coaches corner KWBG going to talk some Madrid softball today. Gabe Dunn joining us. The Tigers and Bulldogs had another one of their classic games last night. We'll talk about that here in just a few. Coach, want to go back, though, to the end of last week. And I know, boy, it was going to be rough on paper when you get a double header with van meter, and then boom. You know, the very next day you head up to the Belmont Clemmie Invitational. But I tell you what, coach, a real nice victory against Garner Hayfield Ventura. I know you came up short against Belmont Clemmie, but, bang, you come right back on Monday with a shutout of Panorama. It still feels to me like the girls are trending up. What are you thinking right now? Yeah, one thing we've talked about and we talked about last night, too, is success is not a straight line. And we've got, we're still so young that we've got a group of kids who are experiencing varsity sports, some for the first time, and others where we're just trying to continue to learn and grow and to understand, we're going to go and have these bumps in the road. And, you know, when we start off the year so strong, we hit a rough stretch here a little bit, but to be able to turn it around and get back on the right track is huge. I mean, I think on Saturday we saw that against Garner where, you know, we were down 8-0 after two innings and found a way to come back and win, which not many teams can do. So I'm really proud of the team doing that. Well, and I think something else that's been fun, too, and I know we've got our usual suspects at the top of the order, but somebody who else has been coming up lately, coach with runners on base, and we've always said this, I don't care how you get them in, I don't care if it's a sacrifice, base hits are awesome, we love those two. Get them off the bases, get them in, we need runs. And it sounds like Tilly's been doing that quite a bit lately. Yeah, Tilly's been really coming out big for us. It's, you know, she's number four in our order, and she's there for a reason because, you know, we need somebody to bring runs in. And of course, you know, we're talking, you know, Audrey and Maisie at the top of the lineup, they're getting on base at a great clip, and Maisie's coming up, or Tilly's coming up there and able to bring runners in when we need them. And it seems like whenever runners are on base, that's when she's at her best. That always has got to feel good, too, coach. And I know we just mentioned two really good ones with Maisie and Audrey, what they're able to do with runners on base, but boy, you got to be pretty excited when you look in the on-deck circle, you see Tilly's up there, and you see runners at second and third. I mean, that's even got to make coach pretty excited. Absolutely, yeah. And that's, you know, one thing I think we've done pretty well this year is really calm down and gotten confidence in ourselves. And in the box, and we know that, you know, just because there's two outs or just because there's runners on base, doesn't mean that we have to change our approach at all. And sometimes I think it gets us even more ready to go and put the ball in play and do what the team needs. Speaking of what the team needs, you got to tell me about a conversation that was had just recently, coach, because these are always fun to me where, and I'm probably terrifying a little bit as well for the player and for coach, maybe a little bit, but Savannah Bradley, you have a conversation with her pretty recent where you decide to move her from the right-hand side of the plate to the left-hand side of the plate, and all of a sudden, Savannah's like the light has gone on and she is just hitting a ton of the softball. How'd that conversation go and how has she done so far? Yeah, I got to give a massive credit to her because that can't be an easy conversation to hear. I'm sure it was out of the blue for her, but as a coaching staff, we talked, maybe it'd be something we could do because she's a super athletic kid. She runs the base as well. And we'll move her over to a flapper and she's just taken it and gone. She's only been doing it for about two weeks, but the result has been great for her and for us. And so to be able to do that as a sophomore is really big for her. And so we're proud of what she's been able to do so far. Gabe, you know me, I'm the big picture. I'm the long-term. You tell me a sophomore is just learning how to slap hit. I'm like, oh my gosh, what is she going to be like by the time she's a senior? But I guess that's what I wanted to ask you. Did you talk to her a lot about long-term and what that could do to maybe even a life after high school if you wanted to play some softball? Yeah, I think in general, we try to take David, of course, but they do see how these changes can be big long-term. And of course, the whole team is someone who, you know, we look and we see all the young kids and young starters and they understand that this is a process so we're trying to build things. And you know, that's something we've been able to do with some of the eighth graders as well, switching them over to slap hitters. And just understanding now to find success in it, it's not just good for them, but they see how it affects the team and what it can do to put pressure on the other teams too. So yeah, you're right, to build long-term is obviously what we're trying to do here. 16 and 10 right now as you get ready for obviously another busy week. I guess the question I'm at now, Gabe, is for some reason we can see the end instead of the beginning now. I don't know what happened to the softball season. I don't know who we're blaming this year, but I'm all for whoever you want to blame. But where I'm going with that is, are we starting to play our best softball? Are you excited for post-season when we find those brackets out and find out where things kind of shake out and what Madrid can do in this post-season? Oh, for sure. That's something that we've been thinking about for a while now, of course, is how it's going to look towards the end of the year. And now we're here. And the nice thing is, with our last 10 games or so, we're going to play five against ranked teams in two way. And so we'll be able to find out how we match up before it really matters in the tournament. And so that's something that we always are looking forward to hopefully playing our best ball. And I think we're trending in that right direction. Gabe, give me a couple of things here the next week or so. Where do you want to see some improvement? I know that the normal stuff is obviously want to keep getting more runs, want to get more girls on base. That's always, I feel like, kind of basic. But take me inside Madrid softball. Give me a couple of things you want to see. Either fine tune, improve. Give me a couple of things you'd like to see, though. Yeah, I think, to answer that question, the nice thing is, it's a lot of the little small things that we just need to fix. And right now, it's just cleaning up our defense a little bit. And it's not that we're making the big wrong mistakes. We're out making the mental mistakes, but the physical ones. And for us, that's nice, because that just means we'll just take some more ground balls. We'll see a couple more defensive situations. And then we'll just get better, clean that up. And before you know it, we'll hopefully be clipping along. Gabe, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck as you guys get Grand View Christian here tonight. We'll talk to you again here in a couple of weeks. All right, thanks very much. You bet, Gabe Dunnigan joining us. Madrid softball here in coaches' corner.