Hello my name is John Furness and I coach the Springfield Bandits 12u softball team. Last year we tried something a little different with much success. Most of our girls on our team are 3 sport athletes. They love softball, but it is not their only love. They are very good athletes and very competitive, but they do not want to give up their other sports; basketball, volleyball, track, ******, and multiple other activities; to play softball 9 months out of the year. We made a decision to shorten our season so that the kids could participate in these activities as well as enjoy family time. What we did last year was start practice the first week of March indoors, and our first tourney was the first weekend in May. We played 7 tourneys in 9 weeks and were done the last weekend of June. Therefore the kids were able to go on vacations, go to the fair, and participate in open gym for their other sports. Lets face it, most of the girls on these travel teams will not play D1 softball. What we are trying to do is get them ready for high school. We were very competitive last season in 12u tournaments. We almost always were in the final 4 and most of the time lost to the teams that ended up winning the tourney; Stingrays '00, the Hawks, Ohio Glory '00, Cincy Magic '00, just to name a few. We finished the season 21-11, not counting our scrimmages. I will be the first to admit that it cost me a couple really good players because they wanted to play year around. However the rest of the team really had a great time. When the season was over, they were still hungry for more, but I would rather have that than having them dread their last two tournaments. I have 6 returning starters from last years team so we have a good core, but we will be looking for 4 above average players to fill out our team. If this sounds appealing to you our tryouts will be at Prosser Field in Springfield Ohio on August 17th @ 10am. If you would like to call me with any questions, my Phone # is 614-570-9723
