team clasifications

[John Ahlborn]

A local team to me was moved up to a better class this year. Then they lost a bunch of girls and are not as good as last year. I was told it takes a couple sanction games to lose then they could move back down. Till then either play better and try harder.

 

[BT3100]

There should be 4 classes of teams.

D - developmental..... with several if not all former rec players

C - Upper Tier Rec team/1st or 2nd year travel team

B - Seasoned Travel team with less that 4 rec players

A - Very competitive travel team.

The issue in PA is that no one wants to move to A. Once that happens the kids can't guest for B teams... it's also much more difficult to find A type tournaments to play in. Most 12U A teams play C level 14u teams.

There is no incentive to be an A team.
This kills the legitimate B teams as they always get knocked out early on sunday.

 

[55dad]

It can be hard to know where to register a team from year to year if you are borderline A/B. My DDs played on a B team that did OK at B nationals one year and the next year they were playing deep into Sunday at A tourneys. They started the next season at B but moved up after two tourneys. I also coached a team that was asked to move down from B to A because we got killed every game and nobody wanted to play us. We took second in our first B tourney and the state director moved us back up to A. It is not easy to figure out where to play. I don't like trophy hunters but as an old coach told me, "Unless you are playing A, what does the trophy mean anyway?". I thought that was arrogant at first but the more I think about it the more I appreciate the wisdom. A teams can't complain about trophy hunters. It is a B/C issue. Why do people care? If the girls get bounced out on Sunday by a team that could compete in A, I would prefer to consider it a good opportunity to play against better competition. A true A team doesn't want to play B tourneys.

 

[quincy]

If the tournament is close to them it is hard not to play if it means no travel.

Thier Team will get worse if they do it to often, you will be getting better and they will come back to you.

 

[grcsftbll]

It can be hard to know where to register a team from year to year if you are borderline A/B. My DDs played on a B team that did OK at B nationals one year and the next year they were playing deep into Sunday at A tourneys. They started the next season at B but moved up after two tourneys. I also coached a team that was asked to move down from B to A because we got killed every game and nobody wanted to play us. We took second in our first B tourney and the state director moved us back up to A. It is not easy to figure out where to play. I don't like trophy hunters but as an old coach told me, "Unless you are playing A, what does the trophy mean anyway?". I thought that was arrogant at first but the more I think about it the more I appreciate the wisdom. A teams can't complain about trophy hunters. It is a B/C issue. Why do people care? If the girls get bounced out on Sunday by a team that could compete in A, I would prefer to consider it a good opportunity to play against better competition. A true A team doesn't want to play B tourneys.

Our team mostly loses (well, that's shifting finally!) but is committed to A level play. So we are registered as A. We welcome any and all competition. But my DD's friend I mentioned, they play B and it's supposed to be fun, and they aren't after playing at a higher level. They want to compete with similarly skilled players so they sign up for B tournaments. I don't think it's cool when a very solid A level team comes in to play a tournament like that. They scored like 40-something runs and gave up 2 all day. I can see it from the side of you improve playing better teams - that's how WE feel on our team - but that should be up to the teams involved. Not everybody cares about taking it to the next level. And that last sentence, exactly. Why play in a tournament like that? They love to talk about how they travel all over the SE to play the best competition. I can respect that. But then they play one like that where there is really no competition for a team at their level? I don't get it.