Softball dynasties depend on pitching more than hitting. When you look at World Series teams, they all have at least one really good pitcher. The final two or three teams usually have a pitcher who is contender for POY. Sometimes, you can dominate a good offense. Now, it is becoming useful to have two pretty good starters. But, you can almost build a dynasty around a really good pitcher (as does Japan).
We won with Stewart who dominated. Ricketts was pretty dominant, but it also helped that we had Gascoigne who, as she demonstrated in the title game, could also dominate. Gascoigne s doing pretty well as a pro. We did win because we had enough offense to overcome the fact that Tennessee had a pretty good pitcher as well. But, whereas you could win with a couple of good hitters at one time, we won because of a rally started by the bottom of our lineup.
With Stevens getting help from Parker and Pendley, we have sufficient pitching to win it all. It helps to have Lauren back. I hope that Self is back. The addition of Nicole Pendley and Parker to the lineup, with the possibility of Arnold may overcome what I thought was a bit of a weakness last year, the bottom of our lineup was just not as strong as it had been. Too often, we loaded the bases without doing much about it.
I was rather surprised that we made it as far as we did with one really good pitcher. She performed extremely well to get us there.
