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Charles Fischer

Greatness Emerges Early: Lombardi Recruiting of "Upside" Confirmed

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Oregon's top two pitchers are transfers, (Brooke Yanez and Samaria Diaz) from New Mexico and UC Davis.  Don't you think that if the conference realized how good these players were that as many as ten Pac-12 teams would have lined up to recruit these aces?

 

We are now seeing it with the freshmen; everyone knows about national recruit Ariel Carlson, but it was seeing the upside with two other freshmen that might have quite an impact on the Softball team for years to come.  Hanna Delgado won Pac-12 Freshman of the Week awards after batting .500 over five games with eight RBIs and a clutch RBI single with two outs that clinched the Saturday win against Portland State.  

 

She had only started three of the 10 games coming into the weekend, and now is flourishing.  She was not a top-ten recruit, but listed at No. 17 or No. 32 depending upon the ranking service ... yet Coach Lombardi saw upside that is now emerging.

 

This is similar to what has happened at shortstop where everyone was wondering about a good replacement at that position, and freshman Alyssa Brito has exploded in run production for the Ducks.  She too has been a Pac-12 Freshman of the Week and it got me thinking about how between seeing the upside with these freshmen and the transfers....Coach Lombardi's greatness is certainly emerging too!

 

Oregon Softball в Twitter: "Happy birthday to head coach Melyssa Lombardi!  🥳🎉 #GoDucks | @MelyssaLombardi… "

Mr. FishDuck

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Doubters need to admit, Lombardi inherited a @*%?!! Show when her predecessor departed, and still managed to produce a half decent result with a miss-matched mash-up of walk-on's, late transfers, and  players lined up in positions they traditionally hadn't played in the past.

 

Even more impressive wass the start put together by the team in last year's COVID shortened season.

 

This year, with a much better prepared squad, and several well chosen additions to the line up, her talents are being highlighted in spectacular fashion.

 

This is looking like it may have been an Altman-like hire.

 

Time will tell.

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It is much easier to recruit to Oregon now when you sit No. 5 in the nation....but when she began?  THAT, to me was the test of her recruiting.  Could she see the upside of players that other coaches could not, and could she convince them to come to Eugene when...we are not looking good at that time?  Boy has she answered that...

Mr. FishDuck

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Mylyssa Lombardi has been a fascinating study. She was first exposed to Oregon softball in April of 2018, when as an assistant coach, she and the Oklahoma Sooners came to The Jane and were shut out 5-0. But She loved what she saw of the team and the atmosphere, and it didn't take much of a pitch from Oregon to get her to take the job when White went to Texas. 

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