Training Insights: “Swing Attractors” by Coach Mike Lotief… Vanessa Soto, Building “Oppo” Power in the Offseason

This is an article about hitting mechanics but also intertwines themes of “redemption” & “second chances”. It has a FAIRY TALE ENDING!

An unseeded softball team referred to as “Cinderella” (UL) with it’s own “Cinderella” player, Vanessa Soto, gets paired against her old team, LSU.

Louisiana, the mid-major “Cinderella,” gets invited to the NCAA Baton Rouge Regionals “dance,” where its former softball coach departed to become the Head Coach because of more resources and “Cinderella” wins the Regional anyways and advances.

Then, in the “IF” game in SUPERS against Houston, “Cinderella”/Soto hits an “OPPO” bomb in the very 1st inning (WATCH VIDEO BELOW) and advances to the BIG DANCE (WORLD SERIES).

In the WCWS, she had the critical two-run RBI double off of the centerfield wall (WATCH VIDEO BELOW) to tie the game and force extra innings, when they beat the overall #1 national seed, and they all “live happily EVER AFTER”.

Yet, this is more than a story about a player seeking “redemption”; it’s also about a storied softball program who JUST A YEAR BEFORE had some hard luck and bad bounces in 2007 and were being “written off” by the naysayers who were predicting “doom & gloom” and the “end of the good times.”

In the article below, the local sports editor from Lafayette, LA. writes, “And that’s the point of this column: With it’s tradition, UL shouldn’t be losing to the likes of Houston and Sam Houston State in a post-season situation.”

But just like Soto and her Cinderella story, the Cajuns bounce back to make their 2nd WCWS under the Lotiefs in 2008, and then use that momentum to start a grass roots effort to build a new softball stadium (2010) and a new players’ locker room (2011) in order to try to “MATCH THE RESOURCES & FACILITIES with the legacy and tradition of the softball program.”

From 2010 through 2016, the Cajuns win six NCAA Regionals, five straight NCAA SUPER REGIONALS appearances (2012-2016) & another WCWS APPEARANCE (2014) & another major construction initiative (2016 indoor hitting facility).

It too can LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER! SO HOW DID “IT” HAPPEN?

STEP #1 – take care of the 2008 season: Add to the core of returning starting players: catcher, Lana Bowers (Huffman, TX), 3B Melissa Verde (Beaumont, TX), outfielders, Katie Smith (Ruston, LA), Karli Hubbard (Lafayette, LA), Vallie Gaspard (Maurice, LA), & Holly Tankersly (Kirbyville, TX), incoming recruits & Voodoo travel ball teammates from the New Orleans, LA area, Ashley Brignac (pitcher) & Gabby Bridges (1B); and two in-state transfers: Brooke Broadhead (Lafayette, LA), McNeese/SS and Vanessa Soto, LSU/2B (San Diego, CA).

Let’s get to work and talk hitting and see what adjustments Vanessa made to “BUILD OPPO POWER THAT LEAD HER NEW TEAM TO THE WOMEN’S COLLEGE WORLD SERIES in 2008.

In talking to Vanessa, she told me, “before I couldn’t hit ANYTHING ON THE OUTSIDE HALF FOR POWER OR CONSISTENCY”.

Soto’s pelvis movement pattern at L.S.U. is “very low level” & does not match her talent & ability & athleticism; and it is so obvious to see and so easy to “fix”.

Her pelvis movement pattern explains WHY she was having considerable “trouble” with consistency on outside pitches and WHY she lacked any power to the opposite field.