{"id":1732,"date":"2019-05-06T12:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-05-06T16:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/?p=1732"},"modified":"2019-05-06T12:36:08","modified_gmt":"2019-05-06T16:36:08","slug":"college-softball-players-travel-from-all-over-to-play-ball-on-the-east-coast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/2019\/05\/06\/college-softball-players-travel-from-all-over-to-play-ball-on-the-east-coast\/","title":{"rendered":"College softball players travel from all over to play ball on the East Coast"},"content":{"rendered":"

When looking through the Seton Hall women\u2019s softball team roster, one may notice that more than half of the players are from outside New Jersey, particularly from California or Texas. Of the 21-player roster, more than 47 percent of the players are from California or Texas with less than one percent from New Jersey. \u201cCalifornia not only produces the most D1 softball players in total (1 out of every 5) it also ranks first in the relative percentage of high school players competing on NCAA l teams,\u201d according to scholarshipstats.com. A study shown by the National Collegiate Athletic Association stated that only 1.7 percent of college students are likely to play Division 1 softball right after high school.<\/p>\n

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University of Florida coach Tim Walton.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A great migration of talent from the west coast has changed the game in college softball. \u201cThere is a big difference \u2013 the kids out in Southern California just practice, train, and play against some of the best players not only in the country, but in the world,\u201d said University of Florida softball coach Tim Walton. \u201cThe Southeastern Conference has used television exposure, new facilities and California\u2019s own players to pry loose the West Coast\u2019s stranglehold on the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Softball America writer Maren Angus describes how she thinks for some students it is a chance to move away from home and create an identity for themselves. While for others, it could be that those were the only schools that were recruiting them.<\/p>\n

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UCLA sophomore outfielder Julie Rodriguez from Norwood, New Jersey.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt’s definitely not new,\u201d said Angus. \u201cThis has been happening for years! But, there are also East Coast players who go play out west. For example Julie Rodriguez plays at UCLA and she is from New Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some feel there may be a new parody across the country. For so long West Coast athlete had the ability to play year round due to the nicer weather conditions, but now there are more students from the East Coast stepping up and competing for the same spots.<\/p>\n

\u201cI picked an East Coast school because I wanted to live on the East Coast for once in my life to see if I\u2019m missing anything,\u201d said one of Seton Hall\u2019s softball player\u2019s from California. \u201cI also wanted to be next to the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

An article from FloSoftball.com that describes the career of California native and Florida Gator power house Kelsey Bruder:\u00a0https:\/\/www.flosoftball.com\/articles\/6330000-kelsey-bruder-brings-west-coast-to-east-coast-with-the-softball-project<\/a><\/p>\n

There is no guarantee where the majority of D1 softball players may end up but as for right now, they are spreading all across the country.<\/p>\n

Meagan Gonzalez can be reached at meagan.gonzalez@student.shu.edu or on Twitter @meagangonzalezz.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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When looking through the Seton Hall women\u2019s softball team roster, one may notice that more than half of the players are from outside New Jersey, particularly from California or Texas. Of the 21-player roster, more than 47 percent of the players are from California or Texas with less than one percent from New Jersey. \u201cCalifornia…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4384,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hall-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4384"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1748,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}