Stalling Tactics good or bad Softball...

[Mick]

Well said Scooby 26, and spot on as it applies to 10s, 12s and 14s.

We toyed with the idea of playing some ASA at 12U last season, but then you would go to the NSA website and see that Teams A and B were playing in Muncie and Teams C and D were playing in Warsaw and you would ask yourself "what A teams are left to play in an ASA tournament?"

ASA could really help themselves if they had a website that shows who has signed up for their tournaments.

[gunshy]

S-26, your point about 14u ASA is very valid and was the same our 1st year of 14's. If you are going to be competitive in ASA, you HAVE to travel to find the competition, as opposed to playing the same local teams week after week. We played, Sparks, Compuware, Stingray, Sluggerfest, Bloomington,Il, Clarksville, Tn, Toledo, etc. The 14u division was VERY thin when our team was there, which is why we moved up to 16u a year early. It didn't matter what sanction we played locally, there were just 3-4 good teams and if the others were absent, there was no competition. Our first year of 14u was a cultural change for our parents, as we got away from being local (Warsaw, Muncie, Midwest, etc) every weekend and traveled more to find better teams. I found it better for our team to play unfamiliar opponents, even if they turned out to be just average, because you had to ASSUME they were very good and approach the games as such. Chicago area was always interesting, as there are a slew of teams up there who detest losing to Indiana teams; we could always count on the worst calls, loudest fans, bad game schedules, etc. We learned a lot about adversity and how to thrive under it by playing Chicago.

[looking in]

Well said Gunshy!! You have to find it if you want to get better! Chi-town is always fun!!!Better when you win!!