What a difference a few feet can make.

Over the span of a few years, moving the pitching rubber a few feet farther away from the plate has transformed high school softball from a pitcher’s game to a total game.

Gone are the days when an outstanding pitcher — Mars’ Monica Glomb immediately comes to mind — can dominate a high school game by striking out 14 or more with regularity.

When the pitching rubber was 40 feet from the plate, that’s how it was. The teams with the standout pitchers were the teams that won.

Just do the math. A seven-inning game has 21 outs. When a dozen or more outs are strikeouts, a team’s defensive skills are almost meaningless.

Some fielders, in fact, may have never touched the ball through the course of a game.

Games were extremely low-scoring, even at the highest level. In the 2000 Olympics, the United States softball team allowed seven runs and 24 hits in 10 games.

The Americans weren’t exactly tearing the cover off the ball themselves. When they played China, Australia and Japan, they scored six total runs in six games.

Fast-pitch softball was pitchers’ duels — period.

No more.

Once the pitching rubber was backed up three feet, pitchers weren’t quite as intimidating. Hitters could see the ball longer, pick up the spin better and offense became part of the game.

So did defense, for that matter. With more balls being put in play, more fielding outs had to be recorded.

Looking at some of the top high school teams in the area this spring shows how much the fast-pitch game has changed.

Knoch, Seneca Valley, Freeport, Karns City and A-C Valley are among the stellar squads around here. A few of those schools use more than one pitcher on a regular basis, something that was practically unheard of a decade or more ago.

Seneca Valley pitcher Claire Zimmerman rarely strikes out more than four batters in a game. She rarely walks more than one, either.

Control and changing speeds, not blazing fastballs, have become the norm among high school pitchers.

All of these teams can hit the ball. Their defense is impressive as well.

One thing I’ve noticed in watching softball this spring is the quality of the shortstops defensively. Rachel Martindale of North Allegheny, Maura Pasquale of Seneca Valley, Alyssa Stitt of Karns City, Autumn Pettinato of Butler — all are outstanding.

High school softball has become more entertaining because it takes so much more than a dominant pitcher to win these days.

A few feet doesn’t sound like much.

But a few feet have revolutionized an entire sport in a very positive way.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle