The softball world outside of SoCal

[ToddTX]

I live in NE Texas. In my area the only middle school programs I know of are in private schools. My DD is only 12, but from what I have seen and heard, high school ball coaching is very questionable in our area. It is largely viewed as glorified rec ball. Anybody that is serious about playing at the next level or getting a scholarship needs to get on a good travel team. School ball is played in the spring. Rec ball is the main thing in our area, ASA or TTAS (Texas TeenAge Softball). There are a few travel teams, but they are all independent and typically travel the 2 hours to Dallas for tournaments. There are actually quite a few girls who play for Dallas area travel teams and just commute back and forth for practices.

 

[FJRGerry]

SE PA here - suburbs of Philadelphia. Our area has middle school softball. My daughter's school has a 7th grade team and an 8th grade team. Each practices 2 hours a day Monday - Friday. They'll play other local middle school teams in a 6 week season - either 2 or 3 games per week. A couple of local schools combine their 7th & 8th grade students.

We also have little league, Babe Ruth and other rec league softball options depending on community. Being a suburb of Philadelphia there are many travel teams of varying abilities as well.

 

[BrianMonk]

As been accurately described by a few other posters, MS softball in IL is alive and well. There are some communities where it means very little and it shows, but there are also quite a few communities playing very competitive ball. Almost all girls that are playing competitive travel are playing in HS and those that have MS ball are playing that as well. Our small corn field H.S. team in IL has 2 girls playing gold ball this coming summer and they’ve also participated in the Surf City tournament in Huntington Beach, CA. Co-ops are also really developing in MS softball in IL allowing kids from very small communities or schools to play for 1 team.

Olympia has produced multiple D1 players and pound for pound probably has the top program in IL right now. You may find a few better larger schools (maybe) but with the limited numbers they have and what they get out of their players, you won’t find a better program. Oly though isn’t alone, they’ve got other team pushing them from central and southern IL. Oly vs. Normal West will be a great contest BTW.

A trend that I don’t think is all that wonderful for some teams is taking your MS team (or similar group from the same town) and playing B ball with the group. A few communities can sorta pull this off but in some cases it’s not pretty. It’s better than nothing, but I think it would be better (IMO) to take groups of kids from a larger area with similar skill and allow them to play at the highest level they can. The teams would benefit and each individual kid would benefit.

Bishop – how does your MS team not get overrun by players? We’ll likely have 30+ kids tryout and that’s after a number of kids don’t even try out knowing they won’t make it (they keep 18). Otherwise, they would try out. That also doesn’t include 6th graders as they are not allowed to tryout until 7th (school rule). We also have a rec. program that draws around 30 kids from our 5th and 6th grade (as an ex., we have all ages participating) and that doesn’t include another 10 or so not playing in the league due to playing with different travel teams

They tried that in volleyball this year and in our 6th grade class, I want to say 39 went out?? That’s out of roughly 55 girls. They split up the teams evenly and it was a little scary according to some of the parents.

 

[Bishop]

Oly vs. Normal West will be a great contest BTW.

I hope to see you there. As a 7th grader my DD would be #3 pitcher, 3rd wheel so to speak. She might end up #1 on the B squad again. It kind of depends on what pitching develops in the sixth graders this year. If her fielding develops well enough or she hits as well this year as last that might get her up on the A squad. Gonna have to wait and see there.

A trend that I don’t think is all that wonderful for some teams is taking your MS team (or similar group from the same town) and playing B ball with the group. A few communities can sorta pull this off but in some cases it’s not pretty. It’s better than nothing, but I think it would be better (IMO) to take groups of kids from a larger area with similar skill and allow them to play at the highest level they can. The teams would benefit and each individual kid would benefit.

I credit that method to being one of the factors to our success. We are playing ASA class A ball with what is essentially our school ball teams. You spend all your coaching efforts developing athletes for your school program rather than developing athletes for everybodies school programs. I'm guessing the lynch pin for that is the dedication of the school coaches. They are very involved with helping to guide the travel organization to make sure we are all teaching the same things at all levels. When the kids get to school ball it's pretty much plug and play. They have full reports on all the players, know strengths and weaknesses and can continue working with them right where the travel coaches left off.

Bishop – how does your MS team not get overrun by players? We’ll likely have 30+ kids tryout and that’s after a number of kids don’t even try out knowing they won’t make it (they keep 18). Otherwise, they would try out. That also doesn’t include 6th graders as they are not allowed to tryout until 7th (school rule). We also have a rec. program that draws around 30 kids from our 5th and 6th grade (as an ex., we have all ages participating) and that doesn’t include another 10 or so not playing in the league due to playing with different travel teams

There's a bit of self selection that goes on. There is a meme that runs through the kids at school, 'If you don't play Oly Fire in the summer, you aren't gonna play school ball.' While not exactly true, it's not a complete falsehood either. Between the 'A' and 'B' squads I think the MS program had around 30 players. I don't think there were many more than that at tryouts, some girls showed up for the first few days of tryout week and stopped showing up by Friday cuts. The A squad is 14 or 15 most skilled players available. Which is ussually made up of 7th and 8th graders from the travel program. B squad picks up the rest and gets played rec ball style. Everyone gets game time, juggling positions a lot to let everyone try the stuff they are interested in.

 

[tmolina]

In AZ we have Rec ball throughout the age groups, rec leagues are usually ran by cities parks and rec, we have highly competitive Club ball starting at 10u up to 18 gold teams where players can come from anywhere, and we have middle school and high school ball in the spring. The high scholl girls don't play club ball during the high school season at all. I have been told by several girls that play 12u club that middle school level ball is very much like rec ball where club players usually stand out quite a bit, and a good club pitcher can dominate a game....

 

[KAT]

Washington State - Desert Area

We have rec ball from tball on up. several different organizations
We have travel ball from 10U up
We have middle school ball, 7th A/B squads 8th A/B squads (no championships no state)
We have high school ball Varsity, JV, sometimes sophmore and freshman or somethings just a C squad.

 

[chapelhillbilly]

Wow! I'm surprised there aren't more from the south here. I'm in Middle TN and we just started having a middle school team within the past couple of years. Basically it is a travel team who pushed for funding for them to represent our school. Travel ball is big here but we also have rec teams as well. This year my DD is playing both. The rec teams are not very competitive (especially hers) but she gets alot of playing time on it and then gets ALOT of hard practice and lessons learned from the travel. Highschool softball is extreamly competitve in our county. Our county has 3 towns in it and all were the only public schools represented in the last rounds of the state tournament in TN. Our HS won the state in 2008 and were the first public school to do it in like 20 someodd years. I really like this thread to read where everyone is from and how the sport is played out in each state. Thanks for starting it SoCalDad.

 

[amanda_cake]

. Our HS won the state in 2008 and were the first public school to do it in like 20 someodd years. I really like this thread to read where everyone is from and how the sport is played out in each state.

I hope you pop back in here, because I'm dying to know about this. Your public schools play against private schools? That is a shocker to me. In the same town as my high school, there is a private school. We don't even scrimmage them. Private schools have their own association here (Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association) or something like that. They have their own state titles, a private school about 30 minutes from here took home a state title last season form VISAA.

 

[Cannonball]

amanda, I'd bet that in the majority of states public and private schools play together in the state tournaments. In Illinois, private schools have a "multiplier" added to their enrollment. So, typically, they are forced to play up a class because they are private. We have several private schools on my dd's schedule.

 

[chapelhillbilly]

I hope you pop back in here, because I'm dying to know about this. Your public schools play against private schools? That is a shocker to me. In the same town as my high school, there is a private school. We don't even scrimmage them. Private schools have their own association here (Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association) or something like that. They have their own state titles, a private school about 30 minutes from here took home a state title last season form VISAA.

Yes we play against private schools in TN. There have been complaints over it for years and attempts to do the same as you said, make them have their own association. I mean the team we beat out for the state title had 3 girls on it that were sisters and 2 had already been signed to UT( University of Tennesse) and UT had found their daddy a job so they could all move there. The 3rd sister was in the 8th grade and pitched during the final games of the state tournament. For our extreamly small town to beat out a team that has that kind of skill and recruiting ability was HUGE!