The Sun Devils gather to celebrate a home run from junior Haley Steele during game two of the NCAA Tempe Regional Championships against the Michigan Wolverines on Sunday, May 18, at Farrington Stadium. ASU lost to Michigan 4-5. (Photo by Becca Smouse)The ASU softball team listed two coaching changes on its website: Boo Gillete is the team’s pitching coach, while former associate head coach Robert Wagner returns to ASU and will be the hitting coach.
Gillette’s first season with ASU was in 2013 after being the recruiting coordinator, among other duties, at North Carolina. She takes the reigns from Chuck D'Arcy, who is now at California. D'Arcy was ASU's pitching coach for the last four seasons. Wagner was most recently the head coach at Scottsdale Community College.
The coaches will have to figure out how to replace pitchers Dallas Escobedo (No. 1 overall pick in the NPF draft) and Mackenzie Popescue (now the pitching coach at Georgia State).
Escobedo (115-26, 2.01 ERA) guided the Sun Devils to a national championship in her freshman season, and has the second most pitching wins and strikeouts in program history. A four-year starter, Escobedo was 21-8 in the postseason.
Popescue (59-14, 2.12 ERA) served as a nice counterpart to Escobedo because of their different pitching styles. Escobedo was a strikeout pitcher and threw the rise ball, while Popescue’s signature pitch was the drop ball and was a contact pitcher.
On the mound, ASU returns junior Alexis Cooper and redshirt junior Jenna Makis, although neither received much playing time thus far. Cooper has allowed seven earned runs in 24.1 innings pitched, while Makis has given up seven in 8.2 innings.
To alleviate some of the experience concern, ASU brought in transfer Kelsey Kessler (32-21, 2.38 ERA at Kansas). Kessler was a two-year starter with the Jayhawks, which made the postseason in 2014, but did not advance.
ASU also has three freshman pitchers; Shea Koepnick (Desert Vista), Dale Ryndak (from Illinois) and Breanna Macha (Red Mountain). Macha's school won the last five state championships.
Reach the reporter at justin.janssen@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @jjanssen11
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