What A Game (and Weekend) - World Series Recap!

[Ksyrup]

So my oldest daughter, Caitlin, is 10 and playing fast-pitch softball. She's been doing the travel team thing for 3 years now (as well as playing in a rec league this spring, so she can get more pitching practice in). We had a local travel team last year, a solid group of about 10 9-year olds we were hoping to keep together for this year's 10U season, but a summer of beatdowns and varying interests left us with basically 4 girls by April 1. So we had to split up and find other teams or get left out for the summer. Three of us ended up joining a team in need of a few players about 45 minutes away. Not ideal - getting to practices is a bitch, but Caitlin is starting 1B and the #2 pitcher, so it's a really good situation for her.

We had our first full tournament this weekend (we played 2 other tournaments that got cut short by rain). And we had the worst possible draw - the best 2 teams in the tournament as our first 2 games. To make matters worse, our #1 pitcher was going to miss Saturday to be at a camp with her mom (they're divorced and it was some sort of mom/daughter divorced kids camp). So Caitlin was going to have to pitch the majority of the 3 games we had, despite never having pitched in a tournament before (she's only been pitching since last August, and only in a couple of scrimmages/rec league games so far this year).

First game, she started out rough and the defense let her down in the 2nd inning, and we got beat pretty good - 9-1, I think. Second game against the best team/pitcher, we actually hit the ball, but their defense is nearly flawless. Caitlin only gave up 1 run in the 1st, then they started hitting in the 2nd, the defense missed a couple of makeable plays that would have gotten us out with only a couple of runs, she got tired, and they had to pull her after only 1 out in the 2nd. They run-ruled us in 3 innings.

Last game of the day was AMAZING. We played a decent team and Caitlin had to pitch again. Our #1 pitcher was due back from the camp by 5, so her dad went and got her and she got there in the 3rd inning. Caitlin pitched great for 3 innings, only gave up 1 run, 1 walk, and struck out 6. We were tied 1-1 when our #1 girl relieved Caitlin. We were up 3-2 in the top of the 5th when our #1 pitcher started having an asthma attack and crying on the mound. They had to stop the game for 10 minutes to get her inhaler and calm her down, but she wouldn't come out of the game.

She ended up giving up the tying run, but got out of it. We were home team, so we got last ABs. The first girl led off with a walk and Caitlin hit a double to CF to put runners on 2nd and 3rd with no outs. 1 run wins the game. So the opposing coach decides to intentionally walk the next batter to load the bases and create a force at every base. Except...he apparently thinks the girls can't pull off a normal intentional walk (afraid they were going to throw the ball away, I guess), so he has the pitcher wind up and roll the ball to the catcher. First one went OK. The second one hit a few bumps in the dirt, bounced off the front the plate and went to the backstop, and we scored the winning run on a freaking wild pitch rolled ball intentional walk! One of the dads looked at me and said, "I believe that might have been the worst move in softball history." What a game!

Yesterday the weather was miserable, but we won our first 2 games to advance to the semifinal and lost on an absolutely BS call on a stolen base attempt that would have ended the game if the correct call would have been made. Ball beat the runner to third base by 2-3 seconds and the tag was applied, but the ump called her safe - claiming she slid under the tag - despite the ump being behind the sliding runner and making the call without see where the tag was applied. She couldn't see the tag at all, and in reality she slid through the tag to the base, not under it. Absolute horseshit. They went on to win the game and we got 3rd place.

So the weekend ended on a bit of a downer as we should have been playing for the championship (and realistically, we would have ended up in 2nd place), but damn that game on Saturday night was about as dramatic as any 10-year old girls softball game could be.

[spleen1015]

My daughter is 7 and this is her 3rd year playing softball. She loves it. Next year she gets to move up to a more competitive level. I can't wait!

Great story! Good luck to Caitlin!

[Ksyrup]

Yeah, including a couple of seasons of coed t-ball as a 5-6 year old and a season of coach-pitched rec softball, this is her 6th year.

Are they doing coach pitched? The 8U teams are fun because it's coach pitch, even for travel teams. From our experience, the major adjustment comes when you move immediately to girl-pitched at 9 years old. I think that adjustment, and getting our butts handed to us regularly last year, is what killed the fun for all of the girls who quit after deciding they'd rather concentrate on soccer or basketball or doing anything else but wasting a summer getting beat 20-1.

[spleen1015]

In the 6U division she's in now, the coaches throw them 6 pitches and if they don't put one of them in play, they hit off of the tee.

In the 8U, the coaches pitch, but the count balls and strikes, have 3 outs, and keep score. Then, 10U, the girls start pitching.

She is a great hitter so far. This is her 3rd year. Last year she didn't hit off of the tee once in her 20-30 AB. This year, she has batted 12 times and has hit the 1st or 2nd pitch every time. She's even hit the ball into the outfield grass twice on the fly, which I haven't seen too much of.

She needs a lot of practice throwing. She can catch fine, but she can't throw very well.

[Ksyrup]

I'm so damn proud of my daughter! We had another tournament this weekend, with 3 games yesterday. The coach decided to pitch her (She's the #2 pitcher) in Game 1, which I questioned - Games 1 and 3 were in pool play and were the only ones that counted for seeding for the elimination tounament we start this morning. But Game 2 was against a team they had some history with (we joined this team that's about 45 minutes away from where we live about 2 months ago, so we're new to everything that's gone on with them), and they wanted to win that game, so he saved our #1 for them. Even the #1's dad questioned it, but we're not the head coach, so...

First game, Caitlin pitched great, but the defense killed us. In the first inning, she gave up 2 solid singles, but they also hit 3 routine grounders that the SS and 2B booted. She had to strike out the side to get out of the inning, but they scored 4 runs thanks to the 3 errors, when she should have been out with 0 runs. That was all she gave up, but we ended up losing 4-3. She pitched 3 innings, walked none, and struck out 7.

Second game, our #1 was clearly psyched out pitching against this rival team, and she got hit pretty good and walked a bunch. We were down 7-1 when she started getting really upset and overheating, so Caitlin came in with 1 out and gave up a single, then struck out the next 2 to finish the inning. We ended up losing 7-4.

Final game, we started our #1 again and she just had an emotional meltdown or something. She's terrible at keeping her emotions in check. She ended up walking 6 and forcing in 3 runs - in the 1st inning. They didn't even put the ball in play once and scored 3 times. Bottom of the 1st, she got hit on the foot with a pitch and the coach went ahead and pulled her for Caitlin. Caitlin pitched out of her mind for the next 3 innings. She gave up 1 run in the 4th, walked 2 and struck out 8, but we lost 4-1. I warmed her up before the 4th inning, and she'd never thrown that hard, with every pitch over the plate. She was flat dealin'. In a zone. Her change-up is deadly (at this age). I finally got the coaches to have enough confidence in her to call it, and she was striking them out, making them look silly, all day. It was awesome. Best thing was the middle school coach saw her come in at the end of the 2nd game and told me how impressed he was with her. She starts 6th grade next year, so that's the coach she'll be playing for.

So our coach came up to me after the last game and told me that if he knew what he had with her, she'd be pitching more often and that she's the new #1 for right now. So she'll be pitching in the 8/9 play-in game at 9am this morning. Hopefully we can get a win, then see what happens against the #1 seed at noon.

[Ksyrup]

I guess I should move this to the dynasty thread...

[Ksyrup]

Just to finish the story...

Team politics, what can you do? We get there Sunday morning, and the other girl is starting the game pitching. Clearly there was some discussion amongst the coaches/parents about what to do, and since we're the outsiders and these girls have been friends for years, I can kinda see how it all went down.

So anyway, first game we cruise 11-2 and get to play the #1 seed at noon. The #1 pitcher gets drilled in the knee in the top of the 1st while batting, so Caitlin gets to pitch even though she wasn't supposed to start. And...we have a carbon copy of the first game from Saturday morning. Caitlin gets 4 groundballs in the first inning, and none of them are turned into outs. Our scorekeeper had us for 5 errors (I had us for 3). But still - they score 4 runs without putting the ball into the OF. After that, Caitlin pitched well and they got 1 run in the 3rd, but we only score 3 the whole game and lose 5-3. Caitlin did great, though, and if we ever fix our infield defense, she might actually win a game one of these days.

[Ksyrup]

I probably should have updated this and moved it to the dynasty forum, but oh well.

A couple of weeks after the Memorial Day weekend tournament, we had our best result, placing 2nd in a 10-team tournament. Caitlin was great pitching and hitting, but the whole team was on fire on that Sunday. Due to rain on Saturday and advancing by winning, they ended up playing 5 games that day, plus finishing a game from the day before. Then everyone went on vacation, we came back 2 weeks later, and were terrible in our next tournament. Caitlin pitched great, but bad defense and baserunning cost us 2 games, then on Sunday we crashed and burned against a team we beat twice the day before, with our other pitcher getting tagged for 8 runs in 2 innings. Caitlin came in and shut them down for the final 2 innings, but it was too late.

This weekend we didn't hit at all, but did OK. Should have been better, though. The bad thing is we're down to 1 pitcher - Caitlin. Our former #1 pitcher has completely lost it - between her emotional control issues, her lack of confidence, and a new pitching coach, she is a shell of what she was just 2 months ago. Caitlin started the first game and pitched a 5 inning no-hitter, but we lost 1-0. Lead-off walk in the 3rd scored on a ground out, and that was it. They had only 2 baserunners. Meanwhile, we put at least 2 runners on every inning and couldn't score.

Second game, our other pitcher starts and gets shelled - 6 runs in the 1st inning without recording an out. So Caitlin comes in and is a little wild in the 1st, but settles down and gives up no runs and has another 5 no-hit innings. And we lose 6-2.

So that's 2 games, 10 no-hit innings, and we're 0-2. Great start to the day, huh?

Last game of the day is against the team we lost to in the tournament championship a month ago. Pretty even team with us. And Caitlin was amazing. 5 innings, 2 hits, no walks, and 13 strikeouts. They started fake bunting to try to draw a walk and bunting for hits in the 3rd. She didn't care. They couldn't do anything with her. She was phenomenal. So at least the day ended on a positive note, and we got to come back on Sunday.

Elimination game on Sunday was against the team that beat us 6-2. Caitlin went into the 5th inning with a no-hitter (she no-hit that team for 9.1 innings combined) before they got their first hit that scored a girl she had walked. We tied it in the bottom of the 5th, and then with 1 on and 2 outs in the 6th, their best hitter hit a towering foul pop-up down the RF line that our RFer flat out didn't hustle for, and it dropped 2 feet in front of her. I turned to the dad next to me and said - "That was the ballgame right there." Next pitch, she smoked one over the RF's head and they lead 2-1. Next girl hit a routine grounder to SS that went through the legs, and it was 3-1. That was the final.

We ended up 4th, which wasn't too bad. Caitlin pitched all 21 innings of the tournament, which isn't the ideal situation. Now I've jsut got to get her hitting like she was earlier in the season. We've got 2 more tournaments, including a World Series tournament in Columbus OH in 3 weeks. Should be fun.

[MikeVic]

If I was Caitlin, I'd be pretty sour at the team so good on her (and you) for staying positive. Can she change teams? Have you gotten any of the other managers to approach you to sympathize with the crappy D?

[Ksyrup]

Well, they are 10 year olds, so it goes with the territory. But yeah, the difference between good and great teams at this level is solid defense and having 6-8 good contact hitters (as opposed to 2-4 like we have). We've got too many holes in our lineup and on defense to be consistently good, but when they put it together we can win.

The tournament season is almost over, and Caitlin will be moving to 12U while most of the girls on this team will stay in 10U next year, so this is it with this team. It's been a good experience - she's gotten to pitch or play 1B every game, the team is FAR more competitive than the 9 year old team she was on last year (we lost every game we played last year during the summer), and it's been fun. I'm concentrating on finding a team for her for fall ball and next summer, so she can get used to the 12 inch ball and 40 foot pitching distance (10U and under is 11 inch ball and 35 feet). The good thing about this summer is she has impressed several of the teams we've played, and I've been approached by 2 or 3 coaches about next year. So she'll probably be going to a few tryouts in August and we'll see what comes of it.

She's had a good attitude about the whole season, even when they lose. I've told her that she just needs to concentrate on throwing strikes and dealing with adversity without getting emotional and pitching through tough spots, and that's all I care about. I did have a grand parent come up to me after the third game on Saturday who said, "Between you and me, and I love my grand daughter, but if it wasn't for your daughter, this team would stink on ice." That was pretty funny.

[MikeVic]

That's awesome (the grandma part). As a kid, I never knew what the parents thought other than my parents saying "you're doing a good job." But it's funny that this kind of stuff could be going on between the parents at the time too.

[Ksyrup]

Best 10U team in central Kentucky went to Panama City for the USFA World Series to compete against the best teams from (mainly) the south (Texas over and up to Kentucky). They ended up placing about 15th, which is fantastic. Caitlin is friends with the #1 pitcher on that team, and I've become friends with her dad from running into them at tournaments the last couple of summers. They'll be playing together on the middle school team next year.

That team will be moving up to 12U next year like Caitlin, and we'll be looking for a team for next year since our current team is half-10/11 year olds who have to move up to 12U next year and half-9 year olds who will continue in 10U. Apparently they had a meeting to discuss plans for next year's team after they were eliminated this afternoon, and they're expecting to have 2-3 openings. The #1 pitcher's dad called me a couple of hours ago and offered Caitlin a spot on the team. This team kicks ass - they've basically won every tournament they've played around here this year, and even though the transition to 12U will be tough (bigger ball, further mound distance, and playing against older girls), they figure to be competitive as a young 12U team next year. So this would be a great team for Caitlin to land with.

Can't wait to tell Caitlin the news in the morning. I bet she'll be stoked!

[Ksyrup]

Sorry about the length of this post in advance...


Caitlin's 10U team traveled to Columbus OH for the Midwest World Series tournament this past week. Got there Thursday morning and made it back home at 11pm last night. What a weekend!

The 10U tournament had 26 teams split into 4 pools (our pool had 8 teams, the others 6 each). We had 4 pool games - 2 Friday and 2 Saturday - and then based on records for those 4 games, teams were seeded and the single-elimination tournament began on Sunday. Our first game was 8am on Friday, so we got up at like 5:30 to get breakfast and get to the field to warm up, but the other team never showed - apparently they pulled out at the last minute when their 12U team pulled out. So we ended up sitting there for 4 hours in the heat, tired from getting up so early, before we played our first real game at 11:30. But we did get a win out of it, due to the forfeit.

First game was against a team from Canton Ohio, and they killed us 11-0. Caitlin pitched OK, but wasn't real sharp. Our defense was horrible though, and turned what was probably a 5-0 loss into double digits.

So the next morning we played a team from the Detroit area that was really good. Played much better D and Caitlin was on, but we couldn't hit again, made a couple of mistakes in the field and behind the plate, and lost 2-0. Next game we couldn't hit AGAIN and Caitlin pitched great, but they scored with 2 outs in the bottom of the 6th on a bunt/error and a single up the middle to win 1-0.

So with pool play over, we're 1-3 with a forfeit win and no runs scored. We ended up seeded 6th out of 8 because one team was horrible (lost every game by double digits) and the 8th seed didn't show up.

On Sunday morning we played the 3 seed from another pool. Not sure what happened, but we just started hitting. Scored 4 in the 1st, 2 in the 2nd, and 2 more in the 4th. Meanwhile, Caitlin was completely dominating - their 2 runs came on a passed ball 3rd strike, a triple (the only hit of the game they got), and a groundout. But of course it's never that easy - weather rolled in about the 4th inning and Caitlin struck out the last girl in the bottom of the 4th as the winds went nuts and a torrential downpour hit. Sat for 90 minutes. Our coach gets a message saying all 8am games are final and we play at 3pm. We celebrate, and people leave to get lunch and chill out for 4 hours. 15 minutes later, their coach gets a message saying all 8am games are suspended and will resume at 1pm. Turns out they sent the wrong message out to half the teams, and we do have to finish the game. So we come back at 1pm and finish out the last 3 innings, winning 8-3.

Next round we take on the fucking Indiana Irish. I'm in Columbus OH and we're playing the Irish - I believe the devil himself would have been sitting in the stands if a Gators team had shown up. I told Caitlin if we get too far behind, I wanted her to crack a Golden Dome for me. Anyway... she was flat-out amazing. Ended up 0-0 going into an international tiebreaker (you start the inning with a runner on second) and we scored 1 run in the top of the 6th. Bottom of the 6th, the first girl lined out to SS, who made a diving play and almost doubled off the runner at second on an amazing play. But Caitlin struck out the last 2 to end the game, and we moved on.

So at this point, we've made the top 8 out of 26 teams. We played a team called the Indy Edge, and caitlin got an RBI single to put us up 1-0, but our SS made a throwing error in the 2nd, she stole 2 bases, and with 2 outs, a girl hit one off of Caitlin's shin and we just missed throwing her out. So they tied it. Stayed tied until the 5th, they got an infield single to SS that looked like she was out but they called her safe. She stole 2nd, made it to 3rd on a WP, and at that point, the game was pretty much over. Coach had the IF play in and told them to throw home, but the 2nd batter up hit a nubber between pitcher and 1B we couldn't made a play on, and they won 2-1.

So we ended up somewhere between 5th and 8th (probably 8th based on our record), which was amazing for this team. Caitlin was a machine out there - I'm fairly certain we were the only team to use 1 pitcher the entire weekend. Our #2 pitcher came in for 3 batters in the 2-0 game we lost to rest Caitlin in the bottom of the 6th, but time expired about 5 minutes later and they called the game. Other than that, Caitlin pitched all 34 innings this weekend. Oh, and 2 of the teams we lost to in pool play ended up at least in the top 8 with us (don't know how the rest of the tournament ended yet - they may have gone to the top 4 or 2)! So we don't feel too bad about the losses early on - 3 of the top 8 teams came from our pool.

[Ksyrup]

One other little storyline for this weekend, too. Another team from our area, the Sidewinders, was in this tournament. They've beaten us 4 times this year. Before Caitlin and 2 other girls joined our team in April, our team's best 2 players left our team for the Sidewinders after 6 months of practicing with them, a week before the first tournament. That's how we ended up hooking up with this team, because we needed a team and they needed more players.

So anyway, the Sidewinders finished 3rd in their pool, but lost in the 1st round. The cherry on top of the weekend was knowing they knew how well we had done.

[Eaglesfan27]

I've enjoyed reading these posts. Pretty amazing that Caitlin pitched the whole weekend.

[Ksyrup]

They posted the completed brackets last night, and it turns out we played 3 of the top 4 teams in the tournament. The team that beat us 11-0 won the whole thing, so considering how baad we played that game and how good they apparently were, that loss doesn't seem so bad now.

[mauchow]

Well, JennY Finch is retiring.

[Ksyrup]

She had pitching practice last night, so we switched her over to the 12 inch ball for the first time. We've got 1 more 10U tournament the weekend of the 14/15th, then she moves to 12U and the bigger ball and 40' pitching distance. She really didn't have much of a problem with it at all. My arm was killing me, though! I think I've thrown too much in the past 5 days...

[MrBug708]

Send her to UCLA

[Ksyrup]

If we ever even get to the stage where we're discussing major conference division I schools as anything more than "wouldn't it be great if...," I'd be thrilled. With my luck the only scholarship offer she'd get would be from UF.

[Ksyrup]

I'm telling you, if I had any money, technical know-how, or connections, I'd make a reality TV show about girls softball and laugh all the way to the bank. The DRAMA - holy shit! And it's 99% the parents, not the kids. Little did I know, the drama's in the off-season.

So we finished our 10U season with this team about 45 minutes away, and because the team was 50-50 10-year olds and 11 years olds, the team essentially disbanded (the 11 year-olds have to move up to 12U). First order of business was finding Caitlin a team to play with. I'm close with the dad on the undisputed best 10U team around here, and that team is moving up to 12U, so he and I had talked about possibilities. Turned out that there was some tension between the coaches (they had 3 head coaches, so therein lies the problem) and they thought the team would break up and there'd be a spot for Caitlin on what remains. But by late August, it looked like that team was staying together.

So we moved on and began talking to some other teams and at the end of August agreed (both Caitlin and her friend Claire) to play for a pretty good team. Caitlin really wanted to play on a team with most of her friends, but they were scattered on different teams and nothing looked remotely possible. We played one tournament with them in September and practiced a few times. They looked middle of the road, but would be competitive with 2 good pitchers.

Meanwhile, all hell breaks loose everywhere else. The really good team finally broke apart, and a good friend of Caitlin's went to pitch for them. Our friends on that team re-formed as a new team and recruited 3 of Caitlin's friends to add to 5 others they already had. So they had 2 spots left and started heavily recruiting Caitlin and Claire. We went to a tryout with them on Saturday an hour before a scrimmage with our current team and they just kicked ass. Caitlin was rocketing balls into the OF like I hadn't seen before and caught everything hit to her at 1B. We had to run to the scrimmage, but they said they'd call in an hour but it looked like a done deal.

So after talking it over with the girls, they wanted to play with the new team. I got the fun job of calling the old coach about 5 hours after the scrimmage to break the news. He was not happy. I explained it was what Caitlin wanted, it was all of her friends and girls she'd be playing with on the middle school team - as well as the middle school coach's daughter - and that long-term, it was in her best interest. And plus, it's not even November and these teams aren't going to start playing tournaments until May, so it's not like we were leaving them with no options a month before tournaments. He and I texted this morning and he was more understanding, but I know (and understand) that he is still upset/disappointed.

So I think everything's calmed down for a little while. We'll be doing conditioning and starting indoor workouts with this team and the middle school in November, playing an indoor tournament in January in Indianapolis, then middle school ball starts, and then this team will hit the tournaments starting Memorial Day through August (3 a month, plus a World Series tournament like the Columbus one we did this year).

I may start a dynasty thread about her season when it kicks up again. It's fun writing all of this down and especially to remember what happened in each tournament. They all start to run together after awhile...