Much Needed Offense Arriving

The Mizzou Softball team was slated to come into the new season down A LOT of offense.

Here’s just how much. I made a chart! The pink indicated a career high, by the way.

per MUTigers.com

In case you were wondering about the offensive impact of these seven on the Tigers’ team this season, they accounted for — I’m about to wow you with my math calculator skills: 921 AB | 138 Runs | 249 Hits | 39 Doubles | 3 Triples | 58 Home Runs | 166 RBI | 108 Walks | 468 Total Bases.

That’s 47.8% of runs, 57.2% of hits, 61.9% of doubles, 30% of triples, 67.4% of homers, 64.6% of RBI, 61% of walks overall this season.

Obviously, having that much offensive production leaves the Tigers looking elsewhere for places to find it...

Enter Texas Tech leadoff hitter Payton Jackson, who’d been the portal for almost a month.

The left-handed Missouri City, TX native — sounds meant to be, right? — led the Texas Tech Red Raiders (whom we played in the MNC early on in the season; she batted fifth and walked twice) in, as the tweet references, many offensive categories this past season: first in BA (.336) | OPS (1.032) | R (32) | 3B (3) | TB (73) and SLG% (.598), and 2nd in H (41) | 2B (11) | HR (5) | OB% (.434). She was awarded the “Red & Black” award at the athletic department’s annual awards gala in early May, as well as Academic All-Big XII. She’s majoring in Sports Management.

It looks like her freshman & sophomore year she was used mainly as a DP or PR, and in her first year of consistent at-bats, she did well. I like to see how her batting average has held up, even with almost 6x as many ABs.

TexasTech.com

With the Covid year, she likely has two years of eligibility remaining.

Here’s some highlights!

Against that team. We could’ve used her, sad lol.

Here’s a few plays that are very Chaumont-esque.

Welcome, Payton (or is it PJ?)! And here I was worried I wouldn’t have anything to write about!

On to the Links!

We could get used to this.. but you know, in black & gold. You can listen to her mic’d up here (scroll to very bottom).

---

Yesterday at Rock M

• Matthew continues his early previews of the Big 12 wrestling weight classes. He’s up to no. 3 of 11 at this point. Here’s the 141 lb preview. And, in case you missed it, the 133 lb and 125 lb previews as well.
• Nate’s previews continue, and next up is the Kentucky Wildcats.
• In Sammy’s late nite commitments edition, Mizzou landed Oregon DL Kristian Williams.

---

More Links:

Football

• PowerMizzou/Rivals recruiting analyst Sean Williams talked to 3-star safety Johnathan Hall about his visit to The Zou. ($$)
• Mitchell Forde broke down the newcomers to watch at each position. (PowerMizzou)
• Gabe updated the scholarship chart after the sharing the new transfer news.
• The Missourian’s Max Baker wrote about MU nabbing an Oregon defensive tackle transfer commitment.

Other Mizzou Sports

• It’s APR time, friends! Time to see how Mizzou’s teams stack up against others in terms of Academic Progress Rates. Forget what that is? Let’s visit this MUTigers.com article:

Each academic year, every Division I sports team across the country calculates its APR using a simple and consistent formula. Each term, scholarship student-athletes can earn 1 point for remaining eligible and 1 point for staying in school or graduating.

Mizzou’s 18 programs combined to average a score of 990 – above the national four-year average of 984. 15 teams matched or improved their APR over the last public release in 2018-19. Football produced its highest APR in the 18-year history of the metric while 12 Mizzou teams scored 990 or better.

The current APR includes data from the 2017-18, 2018-19, 2019-20, 2020-21 academic years. The data was not made public during the pandemic (2019-20), so this is the first time we’ve seen the data since the 2018-19 season.

The four year rolling average must be at 930 or higher (which indicates a roughly 50% grad rate) in order to not receive sanctions.

Another note (and thanks to Matt Harris for confirming my thoughts): There’s also something in here about how you don’t lose any points for athletes transferring as long as it’s to a D-1 institution and that they’re in good financial standing.

• In news I really don’t want to report about, a member of the men’s golf team - YuTa Tasi - has been suspended indefinitely after being arrested for invasion of privacy. If you’d like to know what he did, read the article in the Missourian, as shared by KOMU Digital Editor Stephanie Southey. It’s disturbing as hell.
• Opendorse, the company that Mizzou (and many, many other schools) works with for NIL purposes, has revamped their system, for more than 75 partner schools, at least.

Working with existing and new collegiate partners, these new school-specific marketplaces will facilitate fans, brands, donors and sponsors to directly support student athletes. School specific marketplaces will empower athletic departments to maximize NIL success for student-athletes by mobilizing fan bases and local organizations. Supporters will have a single, streamlined platform to easily find their favorite athletes, offer deals, and complete payments.

“Schools that mobilize their alumni and local markets to support student-athletes will become leaders in year-two of NIL,” said Blake Lawrence Opendorse CEO. “Fans, donors and local brands badly want to support NIL initiatives – but most don’t know where to even start. A school marketplace solves that. They will give every supporter one place to maximize NIL opportunities for their favorite student-athletes.”

Mizzou in the Pros

• Casidy Chaumont’s pro career kicked off on Tuesday, as the inaugural game of the WPF was played in Shawnee Mission, KS. How’d our girls do? Don’t forget, another former Mizzou Softball player, Sami Fagan, is on the roster as well.

I know they lost 9-5, but I’m having trouble finding stats (may update later if I can locate them).

• Sophie Cunningham is expected to miss the next couple weeks after suffering an elbow ligament sprain after the team’s June 5 win against the Sparks. Get well soon, Soph.
• Congrats, Damon Hazelton!

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

If you’re looking to sign up for ESPN+, Rock M Nation now has an affiliate link: click Here for ESPN+ Now!

If you’re looking to sign up for a new streaming service, you can try FuboTV: click HERE for FuboTV access — FuboTV now has ESPN, CBS, FS1 and more sports channels.

(** RockMNation has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though RockMNation may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links.**)