How many Girls play softball in Ohio? Give me your best guess. I would believe counting rec leagues, travel ball, high school and college it would be around 7K - 10 total.
I would even say it is a little higher than that... for example the dome works very closely with HGSA (Hilliard rec softball program) who carries around 500 girls per year on average. If this is just one rec softball association, I am sure there are at least 30 if not more all around Ohio. Also, from a travel team perspective, we have 8 teams (just shy off 100 girls) and we are one of the smaller organizations in the area. Organizations such as the Lasers, Stingrays, Bandits, and even your Hawks, Doom, Classics and Pride teams are around the 15-20 teams per organization. That puts you around 250 kids per org in just those top ones I named. I would guess to triple or quadruple the original number you mentioned!
and surely some would count twice (travel and / or rec), but you have to figure every high school in the state with a softball team has to have at least 15-25 girls for entire program.
I don't usually disagree with Miss Prantl but I don't agree with these numbers. This would mean they would have 4 teams per age group (10U, 12U, 14U, 16U, 18U) to get to 20 and I know for sure that's not the case for 90% of these teams. Bandits may be getting close but it's based on their regional/national presence. I'd say the vast majority of these teams have 2 per age group and some only have 1. Classics haven't bombarded age groups in the entire existence of the organization and Stingrays usually holds to 2 at most.
Run, I was going very generalized, but since we are going there here is the breakdown of teams for those organizations: Bandits: 15 teams Lasers: 17 teams Stingrays: 10 teams Hawks: 16 teams Doom: 9 teams Bo Jackson: 8 teams (year 2) USSSA Pride: 12 teams Cap City Force: 8 teams Classics: 8 teams Heart of Ohio: 6 teams Central Ohio Ice: 11 teams This is 120 teams spread among 11 organizations. Let just say each team carries 11 girls, that is 1,320 players ONLY IN THE 11 ORGANIZATIONS. This doesn't even mention the one off teams, the groups who are outside of the Columbus area that I might not be aware of. There are hundreds of teams and organizations around Ohio. My original post was very generalized, Ill make sure to site my sources next time.
