UPDATED! 12u Top Team Ranking – Pre ASA Nationals Poll!

[inthezone]

Ya the #1 pitcher is a 97

Yes she is..you are right.

[hitandrun]

I am a parent of of one of the players on Thunder and I posted the scores. I shouldn't have done that. I was just responding to the request to post scores. FYI: It was never intended to run up the scores. The girls were just hitting well and getting on base. There were a few homeruns hit that brought in the runs. These are our normal big hitters. Also, there was a rule on that field that if the ball rolled onto the left field sidewalk it was an automatic homerun. This happened several times. It also wasn't a matter of taking advantage of errors or stealing, that wasn't the case at all. In fact, most the teams we faced had good defense. The ball just fell into places that you couldn't get to. Also, there were very few walks in the games.
One team faced was a 95 team. They are all moving up in the Spring and have a good pitcher that came from one of the current top 12 teams. Their shortstop and second baseman made several impressive plays. The coach actually wanted to play the game out and requested that all innings be finished out and not be altered when we attempted to end an inning. As far as getting a wooping, PS 96 handed it to us in San Diego. However, we took it as a learning experience and worked on our mistakes. We are a team that all gets along, coaches, parents, and most of all the girls. We are not trying to make a statement.

[NumeroUno]

I am a parent of of one of the players on Thunder and I posted the scores. I shouldn't have done that. I was just responding to the request to post scores. FYI: It was never intended to run up the scores. The girls were just hitting well and getting on base. There were a few homeruns hit that brought in the runs. These are our normal big hitters. Also, there was a rule on that field that if the ball rolled onto the left field sidewalk it was an automatic homerun. This happened several times. It also wasn't a matter of taking advantage of errors or stealing, that wasn't the case at all. In fact, most the teams we faced had good defense. The ball just fell into places that you couldn't get to. Also, there were very few walks in the games.
One team faced was a 95 team. They are all moving up in the Spring and have a good pitcher that came from one of the current top 12 teams. Their shortstop and second baseman made several impressive plays. The coach actually wanted to play the game out and requested that all innings be finished out and not be altered when we attempted to end an inning. As far as getting a wooping, PS 96 handed it to us in San Diego. However, we took it as a learning experience and worked on our mistakes. We are a team that all gets along, coaches, parents, and most of all the girls. We are not trying to make a statement.

Thank you for clearing that up and we do appreciate you posting scores. If you just post who beat who you won't get an ear full. Thank You and have a Merry Christmas

[psychodad]

I've had my own suspicions, but y is it that "TOP 20" teams fail to show up at big tourneys and tend to play weaker tft's and TCS QUALIFFIERS OUT OF STATE? Just a thought

[SB drama]

What do you consider the BIG tournaments? Last weekend 4 of the top 6 teams were at the AA tourney and had to play each other in the elimination brackets.

There were some great games last weekend

[badcallblue]

Having watched Thunder and other teams this weekend I can honestly say that the team was making several sincere attempts to end innings by stepping off the bases, not running on pass balls, not stealing and leaving early. The umpires refused to call hesitation and leaving early violations. The team just hit the ball. In fact they started a girl who hadn't pitched in a month the first game of elimination. The bigger problem is that this tournament is an open tournament for both rec and travel ball and the tourney host makes no attempts to divide the two for whatever the reason may be. Team Smith rolled through their side as well, with both Thunder and TS96 having their big challenge games against AA's.

True some teams have poured it on in games that they should not have but this was clearly not the case. For people to assume they did is whats really wrong. This is a great group of kids, parents and coaches that don't deserve to be jumped on (even if it is in a forum that is meaningless). This team is still growing. I believe they just completed their 1st year of spring and winter. Cut them some slack and next time you see the team, walk up and introduce yourself to some of the best people you will meet in softball.

[SB drama]

Besides Cal Thunder(#16), AA(was this the 97 team) and Team Smith(#12), who else from the top 20 was there?

[badcallblue]

The 3 mentioned and 3 other travel ball teams were there. I really think They should make this a travel ball or rec ball only tourney.

It was kind of like the Pac-10 scheduling USC vs UCLA this year, very unbalanced........

[SB drama]

So next year get into a better tourney Last weekend's T4T AA tourney had a lot of great teams and terrific games.

[badcallblue]

I couldn't agree more. But I don't think Thunder realized what they were getting into. The host web page gave no indication. No worries, the people on all teams and all divisions at the park were really cool. Nice to be around a bunch of nice people. The host ran it well, but the scheduling was just unbalanced.

I also don't think Thunders coaching staff even comes on this site to care about the rankings. They try to stay low key and out of the mix.

As far as playing better tournaments, well it's just like when people get into travel ball. First they go to their local team (which may not be good) and as their knowledge grows in this arena they move on to better teams. I am sure Thunder will attempt to play other higher cliber teams knowing that it will only make their team better.