Fast2home, you are right on the money.
My daughter is one of the unusual ones. We did the "Ringor Showcase", and she played for a travel team that played in all the big tournaments--Best of the Best, Colorado, Stingrays, GAPSS, Sluggerfest, etc. She also attended a handful of camps. Regular updates were sent via email and regular mail to the coaches on her progress and her game times of the next tournament. Unfortunately she injured herself in the middle of the season, and a lot of the work done resulted in emails saying they looked for her and didn't see her (we didn't know what we were doing, so we started the process between her junior and senior year).
Of the schools interested in her, about 3-4 were because of her contacting them first. About 10-15 were because they saw her at a the "Ringor Showcase" (now QDSN) or at a high-profile tournament.
HOWEVER,
She was offered a scholarship from a coach who had never seen her play. He was looking for an offensive threat, and she was recommended to the coach. She had already decided on a school to attend (no verbal), but we decided to take a look at this school. She fell in love with it and made a verbal within a couple of weeks. He has since seen her play, and she also had the opportunity to practice with the team last fall.
Incidentally, a teammate a year before her was also offered a scholarship by this coach without ever seeing her play. She accepted and signed without even seeing the school.
I have another daughter. We don't expect to see the same thing happen for her. She (we) regularly write to about 40 coaches, and several of them reply to her (not all can because of NCAA rules as she will be a junior). Because she is playing in the QDSS this year, we decided to add about 80 more schools to the list and sent emails out this week. Within one day she had already requests for her skills video.
That reminds me--skills video is very important. You can do it yourself.