Ideas- Increasing The Number of High School Games Allowed In A Week

I think one thing that has stopped some girls from pitching is the time they would need to put in practicing to become a good pitcher. When my DD was young I asked her if she wanted to learn to pitch or play infield and she had no interest in either and wanted to play the outfield.

 

Games Issue!

The NCFSCA agreed that we should be able to play more games and that is how we presented it to them. Again, their response was it was consistent with other sports. Baseball, of course has the same regulations. There is no way they are going to let one play in more contests than the other. I think your time question of Baseball vs. Softball is a legitimate one. One thing I know from the meeting and other impromptu discussions, 4 games in a week is enough according to them. These are high school students first and athletes second. I agree with that statement. It is very difficult to get them to understand that you are talking apples and oranges when comparing Baseball to Softball. One last thing, they are very adamant about this rule. I guess if we could come up with some different option other than just wanting to play more games. I really don't know how to go about asking them again. Anything ideas you guys can come up with will certainly be looked at by the Executive Board of the NCFSCA.

 

What about looking at other states that allow more games to be played and getting some ideas from them.

 

Other States!

I think that is a good start. If other states are allowing more games, they have convinced their Athletic Association in some way. Do you know first hand States in the Eastern section of the United States that play more games? I am asking because I will try to start contacting some of these Associations. I would be interested to know what States are ble to play more.

 

South Carolina is allowed 16 or 18 regular season game with the ability to play as many games as possible in 2 invitational tournaments. At the end 4 teams go into a sectional tournament with a double elimination tournament. Then 4 regions come together and then they play a double elimination format. with the winners moving on to state championships.

In Tennessee they are allowed playing dates and each date as a game. This allows more games on that day,but only counts as one. State tournament similar to SC.
Have played games in both states and talked to those folks first hand.Also go to each states associations web page and it has the above formats on them.

 

Thoughts!

South Carolina is allowed 16 regular season games. North Carolina is allowed 24 with an endowment game. North Carolina allows conference tournaments which raises the total to say 27 games. First three rounds of the playoffs moves it to 30 games. Eastern and Western Divisional Championship game moves it to 31. Possible two game series for the Championship and you have 33 games. I know that is a best case scenario, but it does happen each year. I don't know if South Carolina plays as many games as North Carolina in the long run. I know you will say that everybody does not go that far, but I can see where the NCHSAA will say that this or that team played 33 games. You mentioned Tennessee and the playing dates as opposed to games. That was our original proposal to the NCHSAA and that was shot down real fast. I know I am sounding negative and I really don't mean to be. These are the answers that our Association was given. I will look more closely into the South Carolina scenario and see approximately how many games a team could play with the arrangement you stated. I don't think it could be much more if any than 33.

 

I've been thinking about this issue for a while, here's what I think would be reasonable while still allowing for conference tournaments.

I think teams should be given a choice of how many games they want to play. Here would be the options:

A. A team could play up to 6 scrimmage games and up to 26 regular season games but no tournament games.

B. A team could play up to 3 scrimmage games and up to 22 regular season games and one state approved tournament.

C. A team could play up to 3 scrimmage games and up to 15 regular season games and 2 state approved tournaments.

A state approved tournament would be one that is designed to where no one team could play more than 7 games.

I would also suggest that the international tie breaker rule be used in any game tied after 8 innings of play. But I don't think putting limits on innings pitched is a good idea. I feel the coaches should be allowed to make those decisions based on their individual teams from year to year. If a coach chooses not to "develop" other pitchers, then he or she must live with the consequences of that decision in the future (or hope she pitches a lot in the summer!)

I'm on the band wagon with Pop and Sports Buff. I think we need to first look at what other states in the Southeast are doing and then make a case for NC softball. We must have hard facts of why allowing more games will not take away from the academic performance of these student athletes.

We also must remember we are dealing with a state association which it took the threat of 5 separate lawsuits against the NCHSAA before they would even approve of fastpitch softball in NC high schools. Their stance before these lawsuits was one that fastpitch would never be played in NC high schools.

Before the decsion was made to allow fastpitch in NC high schools, very few, if any high school slow pitch players were being recruited to play in college. But haven't times changed since then!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel the NCHSAA is now firmly behind fastpitch softball, especially after years of successful state tournaments and the number of girls now being recruited to play in college. But, I still think there is room for improvement.

Good people should make good decisions when presented with good information. But what ever direction is taken, the good of the student athlete should always come first.

 

think about this

I think you all are trying to make big changes to quickly.Here is my suggestion.Keep things the way they are and see if you could add just one tournament per year like a spring tournament and be able to go as far as you can with no limit on the amount of games played and be able to play on Sunday.Schedule no games the week of the event and no games till Wednesday after,or just the opposite one game the week of no later than Wednesday and no games the week after.To me this would be a good start.Just my suggestion.

 

Might Work for Some Schools!

I thought this was a good suggestion for some schools. The Conference my team plays in has 9 competing teams. That means 16 games built in the schedule for 9 weeks. The first week we are allowed to play this year we have conference games on Tuesday and Thursday of that week. Then a conference tournament and on to the playoffs. I don't see where we could put the type of tournamnet with datys off as you suggested. But like I saud, it could work for some schools. If the NCHSAA changes something, it will be a blanket coverage for all schools.

 

No need for pitching restrictions with weekly game limits.

Any restrictions placed on pitching at this point in time would be totally arbitrary. There have been studies on fastpitch pitching injury, and they all state that highly repetitive motion will at some point in time increase the risk of injury. That is a no-brainer. The problem is that there are too many variables involved to create a hard and fast rule that makes sense to the game.

To place some random inning restriction would be nonsense. Injury is related to the interaction of repetitions, physical conditioning (or lack of), mechanics (or lack of), and amount of rest since the last competition.

A fully rested first class pitcher in top condition with excellent mechanics on a warm day, could throw 250 pitches if she had to with no ill effects, assuming she gets a couple of days rest before the next competition. Change any of the factors and the situation could change greatly.

The only way to monitor a pitcher is through maintaining pitch counts and getting a feel for how the count should apply to individual pitchers. ALL coaching staffs should do this. As a general rule, the pitch count for a good performance in a 7 inning game shouldn't exceed 90-100. If it exceeds 110 it indicates she was struggling.

High School is limited to three games per week (plus a fourth on Saturday). There is no reason an average pitcher with good mechanics couldn't pitch three 100 pitch games every week on an ongoing basis.

There is a much greater need to regulate pitching in travel ball than in school ball, especially with those travel ball programs with their weekend tournaments that infringe on the school season.