NCAA Softball Umpires

[SanDiegoSteve]

In the Tennessee/Northwestern game, the PU immediately called a slap-hitting batter out for being out of the box. The replay showed that it was very borderline at best. But the first thing I thought of was how did he see this and track the pitch properly, as has been discussed here at length. The batter slap-hit the ball to shortstop, and beat the throw to first by plenty, only to be called out of the box by the ever alert PU.

The commentators just gushed about how the PU is responsible to watch the batter's feet. By the replay, maybe the front foot was past the line, but the batter's box was pretty well obliterated by this point of the game. I wonder how the umpire could see this violation so clearly when he was supposed to be watching the pitch.