Facts from a California Coach

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I have to agree w/ X-static's comment about depth in Cali teams vs our Ohio/Midwest teams due to a conversation I had w/ the IU head coach in Nov. I took my '97 team to play in a 16U camp/showcase at IU & their coach gave my team (coaches/players/parents) 45 mins of her time to talk about what IU has to offer academically & softball wise as well as to answer some quetions.

One of the questions I posed to her was based on her 2010-2011 roster which was dominated by a lot of Cali (western) players. I asked her why this roster make-up as I figured the Midwest might have quite a few players on it. She was very tranparent in her answer which was one of her main recruiters had several ties to that area & a good reputation. Then she said if you look at her roster this yr, there's more Midwest players since the "Cali" recruiter was no longer w/ her. I also asked her what she thought about west vs midwest players. She still thought west players were better but also acknowledged Ohio / Ind / Ill / Penn were closing the gap. My final question to her was if you had to decide between a Western Player vs a Midwestern player given all things were equal who would you pick & she said the western player every time. Her reason was that the competition they see day in & day out is better that here such as higher level pitching & pitching depth within a team etc.. So this conversation pts directly to what X-static was mentioning.

 

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I put this link out on Hey Bucket, CA version of OFC, and here are the responses so far:

http://www.heybucket.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35948

The one glaring point made, to me, is how many friendlies they play. And play them all the time. They go up against the best just about every single weekend playing each other. And they play up in their friendlies; 12 against 14, 14 against 16/18. It is how they get so dang good. They don't just play to win, they play to get BETTER! JMHO.

 

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I put this link out on Hey Bucket, CA version of OFC, and here are the responses so far:

http://www.heybucket.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=35948

The one glaring point made, to me, is how many friendlies they play. And play them all the time. They go up against the best just about every single weekend playing each other. And they play up in their friendlies; 12 against 14, 14 against 16/18. It is how they get so dang good. They don't just play to win, they play to get BETTER! JMHO.

This may be able to be summed up as i said before,, a unified vision for goals and dedication from players, coaches, and parents on a team. You get out of it what you put in.

 

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Let me say this and this not intended to start an argument. But last summer the Laser Black and Laser Gold were very closely matched in head to head play. This illustrates my point. The Gold won ASA/USA nationals. The Black finished tied for 25th at PGF. The reason I use this point to illustrate is because there was a very distinct difference between the Cali teams and everyone else out there. The Black competed, they did not hit the ball very well that weekend but you can make an argument about the quality of pitching that they faced. They did not give up a lot of runs either. SoCal Athletics beat the Black 6-0 and that was the worst they game the whole time they were out there. My point is not about the Black or Gold but the fact that there were a lot of California teams at PGF and they were all GOOD. When you look at the only comparison that can be drawn. Head to Head match ups between the Black and Gold and then how each team finished at nationals. The difference was the California teams. Don't get me wrong I AM NOT DIMINISHING WHAT THE GOLD DID AT ASA/USA. This is a point to illustrate how arguably the two best 14u teams in Ohio last year faired against the nations best and California.