Here we go!

[undergroundga]

OK, few months back, I made a few threads about what to do with our rec. league all-star team. We decided to continue on playing as a travel team. Since half our girls, from summer, were older and had to move up to 12u next year we decided to play the team at the 12u age level(thanks for all the advice you guys gave). We had 2 of our younger girl drop out and we picked up 2 more older girls. One of them being 12 and our starting pitcher. All of our girls came out of our rec program this summer, only the 12 year old pitcher wasn't on our allstar team(she was on the older team). Only 2 of our girls have travel experience, and they are both younger girls(I think my dd is the baby on our team, which she always seems to be),
We have practiced twice a week for 3 mos, and our girls have come a loooooong way! We plan to play only one tourney this fall(which happens to be this weekend). I am acting as team manager while another dad is h.c. We also have an excellent mother working as our sec/fundraiser! I am also acting as a pitching coach.
After our tourney this weekend we are gonna take a break until mid Jan. Then we plan to practice indoors until spring and play 3 tourneys and several dbl headers over the spring.
We are all, especially me, super excited about our debut this weekend.
My dd won't be pitching for this team, Although,I would like to get her atleast one inning in the circle. She will be our starting catcher. We have another girl that can catch, I plan to start her the second game and if it becomes a blowout let my dd pitch the last inning.
Like I said, I am super excited this for this weekend. It will be a weekend of a lot of first for a lot of people. I'm more nervous for my self than anyone else. This is the first time I've done anything like this and am more worried about having all my ducks in a row as opposed to how the girls play.
I've spent a lot of time talking with parents over the last couple weeks about what they would consider a success. For me, simply being competetive in our games would be a success(this is gonna be a big jump for most of this girls), but if we can win a game(and I think we can).............awww man, that would be out of this world.
Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know where we are with our team. I'm glad we decided to play 12u. My dd has been practicing with the 12" ball since summer and it has made a difference. Especially, with her pitching. She spins the bigger ball better and throws it harder(even at 40'). It has definately improved her pitching with 11" at 35'.

 

[CoachKevin]

Congrats, I have to ask why only 3 Tournaments during the Spring? I would at least go every other weekend that would give you 8-10 Tournaments depending when you start and end.

 

[quincy]

Good luck this weekend I am sure it will go great.

Always seems to be a lot of new experiences in softball, enjoy them and make sure the players do too.

 

[undergroundga]

We are treating this year as a developmental season(mostly to keep our girls playing, we can't play school ball till 7th). Well, all years are developmental but you know what I mean. We are testing the water so to speak. Trying to see how the girls(and the parents) respond to a heavier work load.
We also kinda jumped on this thing late. Couple girls,my dd included, had already committed to other travel teams. So there summers are already gonna be hectic. Plus our hc is going into his last year coaching his son's team and won't be as available during the summer.
If you count this weekend we will playing in 4 tourneys this season. We will also be playing a series of dble headers with other local travel teams. So we could be playing about 40 or so games until next fall when we will take on a full load.(If we still have a team).

 

[softball_mom#7]

Good Luck this weekend! Congrats on all of the progress. I love hearing stories like this.

 

[David Carter]

Good Luck...did you guys play any this summer/fall? My only concern would be it sounds like an awfully big commitment to only play 4 tourneys, are all these girls going to play rec again, if so I guess it makes more sense.

 

[Greenmonsters]

The biggest accomplishment has already been achieved. You and the girls dared go where you hadn't before. Anything on top of that is icing on the cake.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I enjoy your passion and excitement. Wish I was back at that age group again..........go get um!!

 

[undergroundga]

Well, our first tourney was both beyond expectations and terrible at the same time.
Our first game was against the MO state champions(atleast that's what we were told) Our girls came out very nervous and it showed. We had twice as many errors as we had hits! Atleast we didn't get run ruled, but we did look pretty bad.We weren't run ruled but we were shutout! My dd did ok behind the plate for her first tb game. She almost had a couple girls thrown out stealing 2nd, almost, mostly due to girls trying to tag too high. it was almost comical, she would stand up to throw the ball back to the pitcher and would barely come up to most of the other team's shoulders(and my dd is not small).
2nd game we played a team more on our level, well sorta. They were a new team, anyway. We beat them pretty good 10-2. And played well.
3rd game was a nightmare. Another team stacked with beasts compared to our lil girls. It was like watching a rec league allstar team get beaten up by a good B team. Oh, wait a minute, that is what happened.My dd was back behind the plate for this game and did terrible, as did the whole team. I mean bad! Instead of popping up everytime she came out of her crouch her first move was to her knees, even if she was trying to throw a runner out. Once she even stepped about 3 times before throwing the ball to second. We couldn't throw or catch anything that was thrown. We put 1 ball into play the whole game and only had 2 baserunners.
So, On one hand we exceeded expectations by winning 1 game! YAY! On the other hand We were not even competetive in our 2 losses. My dd struck out every at bat. Like I said she looked terrible her 2nd game behind the plate, but never gave up. She kept fighting and as the game wore on she was actually playing better than she was at the beginning. After her last strike out was the first time I have ever seen her shed a tear over softball. Not cry, but she did have a tear in her eye. I, later, asked her if she was ready to quit catching. "NO!", she replied, I am not a quiter. Later she told me she enjoyed it better than pitching.
Remarkably none of our parents freaked out. Only one was heard even complaining(we don't expect her to be back for spring). Everyone had their eyes opened and realized we are no longer playing park ball. Even our hc said he learned a lot. Coming from baseball he was kinda taken off gaurd by the amount of bunting and the way teams ran bases. I've been trying to explain for months that we needed to work on bunting and bunt defense but I think now he understands why.
I really though that I would be ecstatic if we won a game, but the way we played in our 2 losses has me pretty depressed. Oh well, we have several months to improve before we play again. I bet next tourney we know how to defend a bunt!

 

[02Crush]

Welcome to the NEW speed of Softball. When we moved up last year into 10U TB the base running and short game (bunting and slapping) were some big problems for us as well. It caused lots of havoc. That said, these are easy to fix and we did it in about a month of work on the field (8-10 practices where we included it in our practice plan). Lots of expectations about what the girls were to do were explained. Coaches met to discuss how we would coach them based on their age and our level of play as well. These types of things made us better as adults. We established a baseline of knowledge on these things with the players and we would then add more to their plate to learn when we felt it was firmly implanted in their mind. After months of work we now have some great base runners with parents who understand why bunting and base running is so important in this sport.

Hitting is key as well. Not just hitting but hitting HARD! I see very few home runs at any age under 12. But we do see a lot of line shots and hard hit grounders that cause defenses to bobble the ball allowing a runner to get on safe by a step or even inches.
Knowing where to go with the ball based on who fields it, where base runners are and why before a pitch is made is also key. These is not much reaction time like baseball. You've gotta be alert at all times. Especially in advance of the next pitch.

Your excitement will go far. Good luck and do not let anyone discourage you. Stay in love with the sport and always try to find reasons to be positive. Especially when it seems bleak.