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NFHS has had the verbal intentional walk in slow pitch, but never in fast pitch until this year. There are some states that may have had their own rule on it, but it was not an NFHS rule. As for the rule itself, I dont like it and I know plenty of coaches that dont like it. All it does is take the likelihood of the defense making an error throwing the 4 pitches that would allow other runners to advance. NFHS says the reason for the rule change is to bring the rule in line with the slow pitch game. I have no idea why they think the fastpitch rule needs to be the same as the slow pitch rule. MLB instituted the verbal intentional walk in the name of time savings which is total BS. There are not that many intentional walks at the MLB level and in 10 years I have seen maybe 5-10 in HS fastpitch. It saves maybe 1 -2 minutes total from a game.
As for the equipment checks, never really found that many bats that were a problem. Have pulled a few over the years but not usually an every game deal. Helmets are more of a problem, find a lot with cracks, missing screws anchors etc. Its just putting the responsibility on the coach, you ask them to verify at the plate meeting the equipment is legal and then watch when the batters come to bat. Coach gets a warning for first offense and they get to sit on the bench for a 2nd.
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