Adding a few players

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Jan 5, 2018
385
63
PNW
Through two games, our pitchers have only given up 5 hits!

They've also walked 38 and hit 12. I'm not joking. It's rough having high school kids who are just now learning to pitch, especially since I'm a terrible pitching coach (I mostly know what they need to do, but I'm awful at getting them there).

Two things.

1) Bless you for hanging in there with HS kids. My 14u TB team (7th and 8th graders) was starting practice as the HS JV team was finishing they were "working" on pitching.....the look on my TB girls faces....their eyes were huge. They realized the disparity in talent can be. So Kudos to you for working with those girls.

2) That same HS team has two players I know personally. The next time I saw one of them they had played their first game and won 19-17. The joy and the excitement she had to share with me how the game went and all the ins and outs of it was priceless. Never lose sight of those moments :)
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
My DD is 9 and learning how to pitch. I'm an assistant coach, mainly because I love the sport and love time with my daughter. And I coached her older sister and younger brother so it was her request to have a turn with me coaching her. Team quickly turned into 10U travel and we have a good group of girls.

We will have tryouts yearly and add players when needed to keep our numbers. We're at 11 girls (play 9) and we will add to that if someone great comes along mid-season. By great, it means a lot: talent, drive, potential, good parents, etc. But we do plan on ensuring the girls on the team now are getting developmental time at positions they show interest in and are progressing in.

Come fall tryouts, girls will have to earn their spots. All girls. It might be tough for us to decide between a loyal player from the previous year vs. someone with more talent. My guess is we'd take both and have a slightly bigger team. But of course you can only do that one or two times. We do have a desire to keep the team within our community and with girls/families that lead to zero drama. The one family that bitched hard about playing time at key spots has moved on, simply because we didn't budge on our policy of earning spots and developing players. We're better off without them.

If and when my daughter moves on, if she's still pitching and pitching well and wanting to pitch, that will be a big topic of conversation with the new coach. We'll find a team that lets her pitch and care less about level of play, winning, etc.

From what you describe in your post, this doesn't sound like the team for you and your daughter.
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Two things.

1) Bless you for hanging in there with HS kids. My 14u TB team (7th and 8th graders) was starting practice as the HS JV team was finishing they were "working" on pitching.....the look on my TB girls faces....their eyes were huge. They realized the disparity in talent can be. So Kudos to you for working with those girls.

2) That same HS team has two players I know personally. The next time I saw one of them they had played their first game and won 19-17. The joy and the excitement she had to share with me how the game went and all the ins and outs of it was priceless. Never lose sight of those moments :)

The hard part is keeping everybody on board as we develop these two pitchers. We have a solid team otherwise. We actually won 23-20 yesterday. It wasn't good softball, but our girls drew "only" 10 walks. They kept it exciting by hitting the crap out of the ball, at least.

The worst part is that every game we play is going to take like 2 1/2 hours to get through 4-5 innings.
 

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