DD just finished her 12U tournament season here in the northeast. She is an 00 playing on a 99 team and was the third pitcher. During lulls between pool games I came to terms with the fact that I love measuring the speeds of pitched softballs, DD's or others. So I spent a good amount of time wandering from game to game with my trusted Bushnell and clocked many of the opposing pitchers in clandestine fashion (unless the dad saw me and joined in for verification of the 65MPH change-up she was throwing). Here are my top-secret findings:
The two hardest throwing pitchers I saw were 54-56 They shut down the opposition. Then there were a few in the 50-53 range who were very successful. Most of the pitchers I saw throw 44-48, and many of them get rocked by better hitting teams. Some of the weaker teams had pitchers throwing 40-42 and they didn't fare very well.
Of course, some pitchers had better change-ups than others and some had (alleged) movement pitches, but at this level I found that speed was the most important factor in effectiveness.
And to address any question about the accuracy of the Bushnell, I got pulled over on the way to one of the tourneys and the officer let my DD gun the oncoming cars to check it against his $3000 gun. 1 MPH difference either way, tops (let off with a warning).
Also, I understand that this is much different than I would find in FLA or CA where girls start doing IR drills in the crib.
The two hardest throwing pitchers I saw were 54-56 They shut down the opposition. Then there were a few in the 50-53 range who were very successful. Most of the pitchers I saw throw 44-48, and many of them get rocked by better hitting teams. Some of the weaker teams had pitchers throwing 40-42 and they didn't fare very well.
Of course, some pitchers had better change-ups than others and some had (alleged) movement pitches, but at this level I found that speed was the most important factor in effectiveness.
And to address any question about the accuracy of the Bushnell, I got pulled over on the way to one of the tourneys and the officer let my DD gun the oncoming cars to check it against his $3000 gun. 1 MPH difference either way, tops (let off with a warning).
Also, I understand that this is much different than I would find in FLA or CA where girls start doing IR drills in the crib.
There are a lot of dads and coaches claiming their kids throw 53-mph who don't throw as hard is this girl, imho.
