The Florida State Softball Team remains perfect in 2012!!!! Our Seminoles moved to 15-0 over the weekend with some huge come from behind victories. Last Wednesday, the Noles beat in-state rival UCF in extra innings (9) with a walk-off grand slam by Brianna "Breezy" Hamilton. The Noles then turned their attention to the Citrus Classic in Orlando where they defeated St. Johns (5-1), Wisconsin (6-2, this time a Top 7 grand slam by Erika Leonard put the Noles over the top), Southern Illinois (2-0), Marshall (4-1) and Wisconsin again (2-1).

Personal notes after the jump >>>------|>

I wasn't able to attend the UCF game and the Noles are now on the road until March 10, when they come home to open ACC play against N.C. State. My thoughts are limited this week to basically what I can glean from the FSU Softball Twitter play by play and recaps / stats.

A) Two wins by grand slam in one week? Odd, very odd, but I'll take it. It means we're getting on base and following through at crunch time. It's good to see Erika Leonard's power come out. There is plenty of pop on this team and the Noles need timely power when playing elite teams like UF.

2) Lacey Waldrop continues to pitch very well right out of the gate. She's a true freshman, and there is tons of upside to her.

Dinich) Hamilton's power is all mechanics. It's a pretty swing, if you haven't seen it try to get a look at it in one of the videos on Seminoles.com.

IV) I continue to like the combo of Perry / Schinella to keep hitters off balance. Also, I like Coach Alameda's implementation of the "kitchen sink" method on Sunday against Wisconsin where Nori, Schinella and Perry combined to keep the Badgers at bay. Remember, Wisconsin was the only team to play FSU twice over the weekend and they had already seen Waldrop.

Bananas) So far our middle infield is solid and comparable to the McConn / Stager combo of last year, but with the added benefit of a better OBP. Keep an eye on the defense though, because I've seen the Noles shoot themselves in the foot in previous seasons. Minimizing errors is huge when the elite games are 2-1 or 1-0 defensive battles.

Other than that I really don't have too much to say since I wasn't at any of the games (really wish I could have made it out to the UCF game). The wins are big for FSU, even though none of the opponents were considered Top 25 worthy (sort of meaningless with 282 D1 softball teams). Through 15 games last season, the Noles were 9-6 against similar early season competition. The Noles will find out more out in Hawaii starting this Friday, March 3, where they'll play Hawaii at least twice over the weekend. The Rainbow Wahine are #25 in the NFCA poll (FSU is 27) and #27 in the ESPN poll (FSU is #25).

Go Noles!

Season FSU Softball Statistics (take them for what they're worth, which isn't always much).

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