2011/12 is getting started soon....who are THE 12/11u teams?

[insoftballnut]

after hearing some chatter, i'm gonna have to put hamady's 12u CP Bulldogs up there with the Raiders Black...........

ya rite,12u bulldogs wouldnt stand a chance against 12u raiders black

[dailyjoy]

Has anyone seen Team Energy play? How do they fit into the mix?

Bucket Sitter I saw Team Energy play in Merriville a few weekends back. They won the tourney pretty easily as far as I could tell. I watched the championship game which had them playing a team from Michigan. Though it was an A/B tourney I think most the teams were B teams.

The Columbus Day Tourney in Warsaw was a fun one to watch. The Heat won but there were some good games.

Speaking of the Heat why is it when mentioning 12u teams no one ever seems to mention teams such as the Thunder along with other teams who play north central? Are we not considered to have good teams? I am seriously curious. Travel ball is a new experience to me and my limited experience last year was mostly at Warsaw and Wabash. None of the "good" teams who won the tournaments at those locations seem to be talked about so I was wondering if maybe what I thought were good teams really were just average teams.

[insoftballnut]

y0u wont hear to much about those central teams,or twards indy on here rite now because 99% of the teams in northwest indiana are afraid to play them,

[basesloaded22]

from what im reading raiders99 is the teamto beat.if there winning all the tournaments they must be legit.congrats to the team. whoever said the raiders werent a elite team in 12u then who is. comparing them to cp98 or xtreme98 is like comparing apples to oranges.two differnt age groups.a year makes a big difference at this age. i do agree its time for them to move to A.and from the looks of it they probaly wont have a choice.

[NWISoftballGuy]

Has anyone seen Team Energy play? How do they fit into the mix?

Bucket Sitter I saw Team Energy play in Merriville a few weekends back. They won the tourney pretty easily as far as I could tell. I watched the championship game which had them playing a team from Michigan. Though it was an A/B tourney I think most the teams were B teams.

The Columbus Day Tourney in Warsaw was a fun one to watch. The Heat won but there were some good games.

Speaking of the Heat why is it when mentioning 12u teams no one ever seems to mention teams such as the Thunder along with other teams who play north central? Are we not considered to have good teams? I am seriously curious. Travel ball is a new experience to me and my limited experience last year was mostly at Warsaw and Wabash. None of the "good" teams who won the tournaments at those locations seem to be talked about so I was wondering if maybe what I thought were good teams really were just average teams.

Ok dailyjoy, your new to travel so hopefully these guys take it easy on you in this forum. Warsaw and Kankakee are the B capitals of Indiana and Illinois. Not to say there are no good B teams that play in the tourneys in these areas, but the competition usually is not there like NSA A, or better yet, ASA tourneys. If a team continues to compete in these tourneys and not play the A or ASA teams, that team will probably never be considered to be one of the best, cause they haven't played the best! They more than likely are just an average team from what I have seen in the past.

From what I've heard, the Raiders Black are now considered NSA A after beating the "best" teams from the Indy area! So what was that you were saying insoftballnut? The Raiders must be the 1% huh?

[Scooby26]

Daily Joy--my daughter's are now far removed from the 10U and 12U days but they started out in travel ball playing on the original Indiana Thunder teams. At that time we where just winging it and traveling somewhere almost every weekend to try and find good tournaments. Some of the names of the better teams have remained the same and some have disappeared. The one constant that remains is that if you want to see the better teams, and your home base is in North Central Indiana, you'd better be prepared to do a lot of driving. Most Indy teams at the younger age levels won't travel outside the Indy area very often for touraments and the same can be said for NWI--I don't blame either of them, why spend the money traveling if the teams are coming to you? ASA seems to only hold ASA/USA qualifiers from Indy South and West, so ASA is non-existent in the North Central part of the state. NSA tourney's at Warsaw were then and remain now about the only option if you wanted to avoid the cost of hotels. We had a talented group of players and a unique group of parents that were willing to make the financial sacrifice in order to see the better competition once we figured out that we could compete with them. If you have the horses to play with those elite teams and the parental support to do the traveling---I would recommend venturing out and trying it. Those memories from back then are priceless and well worth the time and money.

[softball_freak]

too quiet out there!

[fastec27]

Daily Joy--my daughter's are now far removed from the 10U and 12U days but they started out in travel ball playing on the original Indiana Thunder teams. At that time we where just winging it and traveling somewhere almost every weekend to try and find good tournaments. Some of the names of the better teams have remained the same and some have disappeared. The one constant that remains is that if you want to see the better teams, and your home base is in North Central Indiana, you'd better be prepared to do a lot of driving. Most Indy teams at the younger age levels won't travel outside the Indy area very often for touraments and the same can be said for NWI--I don't blame either of them, why spend the money traveling if the teams are coming to you? ASA seems to only hold ASA/USA qualifiers from Indy South and West, so ASA is non-existent in the North Central part of the state. NSA tourney's at Warsaw were then and remain now about the only option if you wanted to avoid the cost of hotels. We had a talented group of players and a unique group of parents that were willing to make the financial sacrifice in order to see the better competition once we figured out that we could compete with them. If you have the horses to play with those elite teams and the parental support to do the traveling---I would recommend venturing out and trying it. Those memories from back then are priceless and well worth the time and money.

Congrats on the twins and Bowling Green!

[jag1]

I wonder if there will ever be a serious travel team from southeastern Indiana (or why there hasn't been one already)..?

[slapperdad]

Jag, SE Indiana is fairly sparsely populated. I think most of the kids end up either playing with local teams that play a lot of backyard stuff, or they end up with Cincy area teams. I've lost track now, but EMR had some pretty solid teams back in 10's and 12's, 05, 06, 07 that time frame.

Another thing to keep in mind, some of the high schools in SE Indiana area take a different approach, they opt to get kids together when they're young, and keep them together as the grow up, to feed their high school programs.