I'll speak my mind and throw in my two cents....
Last year we had 14 girls on our roster and it seemed no one was too happy. We had several girls from one school, several levels of playing ability, so we decided to divide into two 16U teams, calling them Red and Black, but it was clearly an "A" and "B" team. Some girls were not happy with their "B" team assignment, but only one girl decided to leave, and it was because the dad did not think she should play on the "B" team.
We had some incredible tryouts. We had more girls with talent at our tryouts than we had ever had before, and that was mainly due to our success last summer.
We picked up girls and had to turn away some girls that in other years we would have loved to have had on our team. Both Red and Black teams had commitments from 12 girls and we were set for the winter and the next season.
The Black team played fall ball, and had to pick up some girls from the red team to fill in. We had a pretty successful fall ball season. However, two of the girls we had picked up never played fall ball...one was sick all fall and the other played volleyball. In November we got an email that one of them could not commit to the travel and expenses of travel ball. A couple days later the other quit to concentrate on volleyball. These were two of our "prized" new players that took the spots of girls that we turned down. We had some more tryouts to fill these spots and ran across two more players. They both committed to us. One played an indoor tournament with us, but the other had to call in at the last minute and cancel because she could not get off work.
School ball came and went and no one said anything about not wanting to play summer ball. Two days before our first tournament one of our December pickups decided she did not want to play summer ball. The next day, the day before our first tournament, our other December pick up was forced off by her parents for poor behavior, leaving us with 10 players on our summer roster.
We played that first tournament and won it going 5 and 0. As a team we hit 11 homers, over the fence, in those 5 games. We had three pitchers pitch well for us and we looked like a very strong team, regardless of the small roster of 10 players. On Thursday of the next week, on of the pitchers, that got the 2nd most innings pitching, decided that she was not getting enough playing time and quit. We now had 9 players on our roster heading into the Dayton Metro.
At the underclassman all star tryouts I saw someone that used to play against us and talked for a few minutes about our roster. A day or so later he asked if his daughter could come and play for us to be closer to home. Our roster was back at 10.
Dayton Metro was a disaster for us. One of our girls got real sick...104 temp and was out for the weekend. Two girls had ACT on Saturday. One took a school trip to the Bahamas so she was gone for 10 days. We picked up two non travel players to get through the weekend and actually only lost one game going into Sunday. SUnday morning I woke up to the text that the girl we had just picked up didn't like playing every minute of every game at 2nd base, so she was quitting. That left us no choice but to pick up another non-travel player. So, this same team the week before that had won their first tournament in convincing fashion, had to play the Lasers Black team with three girls that didn't play travel ball. Needless to say we lost and were out of that tournament real early.
We kept trying to pick up players to get our roster up to 10 or 11 players, but we could not get the extra players. Some girls came to sub for us on occasion, but no one would commit to us, even with seriously reduced fees.
We had a pretty strong 10 players two weeks ago at the CIncy Metro when disaster hit us. Our SS, and best hitter, hit first base awkwardly running out a meaningless grounder in a 7 to 1 game in the last inning. We had played a player earlier in the game and pulled her so we had no subs. She limped up and went into left field for the last inning, but she was not right. Torn meniscus. Out for what is now the remaining part of our season. We lost the next game and lost our last chance at "A" Nationals in Montgomery, and we were down to 8 regular players. We picked up players over the next two weekends to make it through, but we were a shell of what we were earlier in the season.
We were settling for the Eastern Nationals in York Pa, with the hopes our SS could make it back and we had two pick up players that would really help us make a strong run in York. Last week, one of the players said they could not play because their dad could not get off work. Tuesday, our other SS broke her ankle in volleyball camp, and yesterday the other sub said they were playing with another team in South Carolina. Our roster had 6 healthy players, and no hope of going to play anywhere next week.
In a season that had so much promise for us, has seen it crash and burn like no other team I have ever been associated with.
Bad luck is partly to blame, but parents and players that commit and decommit at the drop of a hat are a major source of frustration for me right now. I'd love to start a black ball list of players that jump ship at the first sign of their daughter having to work for something. It would be nice to have it posted on here for everyone to see so you know not to count on them.
Our season is over after this weekend as we limp into the Midwest all sanctioned World Series. The same team that came in second in Lasers, won their first tournament at West Liberty, and had so much promise early in the year, is sitting home next weekend, not going to the thing we set our sights on...A nationals, or next best, B Nationals. There's our season in a nutshell. Very disheartening how a few peoples' decision to not play after committing can ruin the season of so many.
