OMG. In my humble opinion Doom 95 is either the best or second best 14U team in Ohio and I don't think anyone could argue that Doom 95 isn't at least in the top five 14U teams.
I'm not going to name teams, but in a fall tournament we saw two of the teams that are going to Compuware at 14U. They were nowhere close to the competitive quality of the Doom 95 team (which is not to say they are bad teams, as Doom 95 represents quality that is very hard to attain). I make my comparison from first hand knowledge: we beat one of the teams twice and the other got knocked out without playing us, but I did scout that team during the tournament; with the Doom 95, on the other hand, we are 0-for the several times that we have played them.
I'm thinking that the Lasers Gold should schedule their Invitational for the same weekend as Compuware in future years, as they have done for 2010. And elite Ohio teams should support that tournament rather than applying to Compuware with its nonsense selection criteria and less than accurate representation to college coaches that Compuware gets the best teams from Michigan and contiguous states.
In fact, I'm ticked off enough about this that I would be willing to spearhead an email to send to college coaches who have been invited to the Lasers Gold Invitational, explaining why that tournament far better represents the best of Ohio travel ball. Send me a PM if you are a coach of an Ohio travel team and would be willing to have your name on the list of signatories for that email. (You would of course be sent the actual text of the email before making the final decision to join in it).
