Off age tournament groups

[larson]

I was just curious if any of the sanctioning groups would every consider having a 11-u, 13-u, etc. Brackets for their tournaments?

Thank you

 

[raidian70]

USSSA does it. But most teams, even ones who say they are an odd year team are often times mostly that way, but have 1 or 2 kids at the older age which makes them ineligible for such tournaments. It might be more true at the 9u and 11u age.

 

[daboss]

If it aint broke don't fix it! I was against USSSA doing the in-betweens when they started it. We don't need it. This is not Rec ball. Kids within a 2-year age time frame is good enough.

One of the worst issues many players will face is the culture shock of going to high school to play sports. After years of playing within their own age groups they suddenly are thrust into a situation of 4 years difference in age and classes, all trying out for limited spots on a roster. This is devastating to many kids. Mostly because of the pressures put on them by families expecting their success to continue even though the format has changed. The earlier kids learn the value in hard work to earn their way onto rosters, the better off they will be once they can no longer choose their fate. Travel ball helps take this edge off and will mature the girls in this respect.

In the real world all of us compete for positions in some manner. Some times it is experience or service time that can make a difference. In other cases it may deal with being too old or too new to the job we may want. So many factors are involved. The process we are dealing with here mirrors the real life challenges. If you want to help your kids become successful, quit looking for the easier path and instead challenge them to make the grade in a realistic environment. Not preaching, just my opinion on the subject at hand.

 

[Mike_Craig_-_Ohio USSSA]

Now you are going to get me on my soapbox. When I was with NSA this idea was floated in discussions. Most felt the same way daboss felt: The game doesn't need more divisions or age groups, let them take their beatings every other year until they are teenagers playing in high school. Now flash forward a year later and I am with USSSA and am hosting these age groups in a National Championship in about 5 weeks in Marion. We are probably not going to get enough to go in 9u but have 26 in 11u, 15 in 13u, and 8 in 15u age divisions. Same week in IA, they have over 108 teams with 87 of those teams in 11u and 13u. In there event they have 10u's playing up in the 11u and 12u's playing up in the 13u. It must matter to someone!

Now in that same sense, I offered this same format as a regional the last weekend of June in Whitehall and am not going to have enough teams for the event to make. This tells me that this is a specialty or niche program. A director wouldn't build their entire program around these age groups but if offered once or twice per season especially at 11u and 13u might get enough to spin off separate brackets for those teams to play in. Like raidan said, teams will put 04 or 02 in their team name and have 1-2 kids who are 03 or 01 birth dates. By our rules they are not 11u or 13u teams this season.

I just notice that the most dramatic jumps in softball are going from 35' pitching in 10u moving to 12u and from 40' to 43' in 12u moving to 14u. 14u moving to 16u is still at 43' so the pitching jump isn't as dramatic as the fact that second year 16u teams could and probably will have girls who are 2nd or 3rd year starters on their high school teams in the circle. Something that I would notice during my NSA tenure was the "first year" teams that would play most of our tournaments in 12u and 14u. First year they would build their schedule around the NSA "B" program, second year I wouldn't get them as much other than a couple of big events they wanted to play. Then next year at 14u, got them in several events and heading off to the B Worlds. You don't have to be a genius to figure out where this is going.........

Now in the same breath, I have hosted baseball before. Baseball is offered every year (10u, 11u, 12u, 13u, etc.) I was sitting at a deadline on 2 teams in an 11u age group and 7 in 12u. Now 11u and 12u both pitch at 50' and have 70' bases. I called an offered to reduce the price to both 11u teams if they moved into 12u. The one coach got so indignant with me it startled me. He told me to mail the refund to his treasurer and pretty much ran me off the phone at that point. The other was pleased that I offered the chance to still play and told me he would have moved up even without the price break.

So in closing I'm not trying to make it personal with anyone, just stating an opinion. As someone on the admin side, I hear different "problems" and my job is to take those and see what solutions can be implemented to keep teams interested in attending our events.

 

[Bob_Himmelein]

I rarely post on these things, but I would agree with Mike, it is too hard to figure which are 9U and which are 10U, many organizations have odd/even teams and when I looked into possibly doing it, I found that usually rosters are not pure in age group. Then it becomes, what percentage of 9 year olds does to remain an odd year team. Even spoke with some coaches on it and especially for smaller organizations it does not work as there is no guidelines which please everyone.

We will do Gold/Silver at some of our tournaments in the younger ages. Nothing is worse than being the low seeded team which comes at 8am and then gets beat-up. We put the winners of the first round games into the Gold Division and they play for 1st and finalist. Note, we use the high to low seeding in first round.

The losers of first round, go into Silver Division and they then play for 1st & Finalist. Gives the better teams more games against each other and the newer or younger teams a chance to win and play competitive in games on Sunday. I give awards in each division and explain, we split into two tournaments for Sunday.

This way everyone gets a minimum of five games, not one has the dreaded 9:30am Sunday ride home after losing 8am games. I can tell it is very popular with the players, most coaches and many times parents thank us. The only draw back is the cost of a few more awards and games, but when you hand out the awards to teams who truly made the effort and got to be in more than an elimination game on Sunday, it is a no brainer and money is not what it is about.

I know baseball often does only the top X % make the finals from Pool Play and others may get consolations or "silver" division. I have thought about, doing that at one tournament, but as Pool Seeding is not a science, I will continue to go with this format. We will do this 12U as well sometimes.

It is funny sometimes. I recall a conversation with a parent who wanted to know how "double elimination worked. I explained what we were doing and why. The response was "that's stupid." Always willing to listen, I asked why she felt that way. Her response was because I don't understand it! At that point, I gave up the discussion.

Hope everyone has a good season!

 

[wpaguy]

Just my .02 but in western PA , seems the new trend is 11u Teams register as "B"" teams and 12u teams register as "A" teams ...Not all teams ,just some ....Skill level is still also used for A and B divisions ...Mike what are the official rules to classify your teams A or B ....I think someone told me if 70% of your team is from same School district ...you could consider yourself a B team .....and if 100 % of your team was from the same school district , you could be considered a C team .....

I know you cover Ohio, but why in PA do teams in the east side of state use B and C , but the western PA use A and B ? Very confusing when a team from central PA and east , comes to IUP or Pittsburgh they enter into B bracket , but should they really be A ?

 

[Mike_Craig_-_Ohio USSSA]

The whole A/B and now for us affiliated with USSSA, the C thing is another topic we could debate for weeks and months. It is almost a no win because if you say if they are all from the same school or town and you put them B, and they work their tails off and have good coaching........ Or if you say if they have kids from all over the state so they are automatically A and they never practice and some of the girls don't work hard, the "B" team in the example above might play circles around the A team.

A lot of it has frankly been the honor system. But as we all know there are coaches who will tell you how weak their team supposedly is and then they are in the championship game that weekend. I don't know and would gladly welcome a better system to determine this.

Don't get me started on what the definition of an B team in Ohio vs a B team in Kentucky or Indiana is. I would work those NSA North Class "B" World Series and get a couple of Ohio teams to go over to them and none of them would be around on the final day when we usually got down to the final 6-8 teams. There would be 2 teams from Kentucky entered and both would be in the final 8. Explain that.

 

[daboss]

lol. Mike speaks of a problem (if that truly is a problem) of the honor system and the A, B, vs C divisions in USSSA. This has been around for a while and years ago one of my many observations dealt with this "honor" system to sanction teams.

One thing I noticed was northern Ohio had many teams sanctioned A while the southern Ohio teams were mainly B sanction. For this reason, there was a general feeling that the northern half of the state had better softball players and teams. It was found to be reasonably untrue when teams began to travel more and competed outside their zone. Back in the day, Ohio had the state split in half with 2 state directors. I always wondered if it was the influence of the Directors that was responsible. The other thing that surfaced was directors would "suggest" if you are a first year team in your age group you sanction B and second year sanction A. C clubs were to be considered Rec teams that did not compete on the travel ball summer curcuit and only played in maybe 1 or 2 local travel tourneys.

Even with this separation, many tourneys would mix the A, B, and C teams for tourney pool play. However they were awarded points in the USSSA points champion race by divisions and if not mistaken awarded extra points for winning outside your division. No benefit for an A team but great to be a B team. To be honest; I believe it was simply the culture of the time within the state. Many Ohio teams from the southern half had the lowball'ing mentality while the northern half seemed to thrive on the pride and ego of being A teams. It was really interesting to witness and you could sense it in the air at tourneys.

Ohio wasn't the only state doing it. At the national tourney my 16u team attended, 128 teams were sanctioned B. At the same location in Canton, Michigan I believe 38 teams from across the country were playing in the A division. It was the first time I witnessed the teams actually playing solely within their divisions. I could see no difference in talent-------not to me anyway----------not at that level. Springfield Thunder 16u finished 9th out of 128 teams that week. I still smile and think of all those girls and how hard they worked even when they got knocked into the loser's bracket. The confidence the girls' developed carried on thru high school with at least 4 playing in the Ohio State High School championship game in D2 and at least 3 earned All State honors. All made All League in their respective conferences AFTER our summer season.

It was THAT team I was a part of from 14u till they disbanded because they didn't have enough to compete at 18u that showed me how important this game could be to the girls. The self esteem and confidence followed the kids and even today their personal success is shining. This game is bigger than the game itself. Relish the moments and the rewards are huge.

I have always been a fan of the USSSA system and the points thing is genius in my book. They were very good at getting the information up to date and available on their website and the overall format is the best. ASA has always had the stronghold on fastpitch but I believe the overall contribution to our game is surpassed by none over USSSA. Great sanction and I'm a Pride fan to the end!

 

[Mike_Craig_-_Ohio USSSA]

When I originally ran my first tournament in 2000, it was A or B. It was A was travel teams, B were Rec/Community teams. A teams played tournaments, B teams rarely did. The first A World Series that I worked for NSA in 2004 had 650 teams at Berliner Park in Columbus with teams from everywhere except CA. Flash forward to 2006. I worked my second NSA A World Series at Berliner Park here in Columbus. 440 teams in 5 age groups with the majority in 14u & 16u. NSA offered it's first B World Series in E. Peoria, IL. They had about 125 but also ran an Eastern Class B in Charlotte that had about the same amount of teams.

Last season I worked my last NSA B WS in Hamilton County, IN. 225+ teams or roughly the same amount of teams playing in the USSSA Indiana State Tournament next weekend in Columbus, IN. The A in Chattanooga had barely 100 teams with 75 of them from the Northern Zone or my zone.

See the trend here.

I have noticed something with teams registering online with us: Many do not know the perceived difference between A or B. Some pick A because they are told by other coaches in their organization that is the only letter to choose. Some because they are not aware that there is a B program.

One thing I can say that I am glad they took away was the option to choose class C. If a team fits that profile, then hey have to email their state director and request to be classified at that level.

This is something that I put together last August to try to define what we are should be looking for in classification: http://www.thesoftballzone.com/showthread.php?11456-USSSA-General-notes-on-Team-Classifications

 

[FastBat]

Boys have 9u, 10u, 11u, etc. But, I think there are way more baseball players to choose from and with boys one year makes more difference physically. I could be wrong, but I think softball really doesn't need that specialized age groups. I like playing older and younger.