NCAA softball still dominated by regions

thank you

precisely what I intended to say. I knew she had committed to NCSU, although apparently she was recruited by some west coast schools.

 

Recruited has a many different meanings . . .

in the end it only matters which schools actually offer and, in the case of a pitcher, anything less than a 100% scholarship offer suggests you are not considered a #1 priority.

 

Money

Money can be the easy root of the issues being commented on for travel ball and for ACC schools. You want to see both get better, sooner and faster. Starting at 10u, the travel ball teams based her in NC need expand their bubble, get outside of the box and start heading to different states to play. 10u, 12u, 14u start heading into VA, SC, TN, and especially GA and FL. You see more teams doing this on a regular basis from NC, then the level of softball will get better even quicker. In turn, that will eventually spill into the ACC schools as well. By taking younger teams to these more competitive softball states, they will develop so much faster. There are good athletes in every state, the question is what level of exposure do you get. If a player has the ability to be an elite level softball player, but there not playing in competitive national showcases each weekend at 16u and 18u, it greatly diminishes their level of schools watching and recruiting them. There are teams from NC that play in some nationally competitive tournaments. Lady Lightning, Cardinals, Team TFS, and Wildcats. The more nationally competitive tournaments a team plays in, the more interest from larger softball schools starts to occur. It makes a huge difference when a team plays in 8-12 nationally competitive tournaments versus 3-5 in a year. You may have a "major league" team, but if you spend more of your time playing "minor league" tournaments, then how are the "major league coaches" going to know anything about the players. Now to follow through with all of the above, you then have to have MONEY. The team has to have a much larger budget, so either the parents have to pay a lot more or the team has to be funded by someone or some company. Speaking off the cuff, and just my observances and many conversations over the last few years with other softball parents, team fees for teams in NC don't compare to a lot of other areas and teams in the country. My DD has played for 3 different teams/organizations from 10u now to 18u. It seems like on each of the 3 teams, it has always been like pulling teeth to get a good portion of the player fees out of many of the parents and to get everybody involved with fundraising. There's always a few or several other parents complaining about the player fees and the travel fees involved. Two summers ago as my DD's team was playing a team out of Northern California, I had an in depth conversation with a parent from the other team. We started talking about the fees involved with our DD's teams. There was around a $2,000 difference between player fees. When I told him ours was $2,000 less he laughed pretty hardily. We went on to break it down even further. It came out to where both of our DD's teams were playing only a 1 tournament difference for a years time, both teams were in 3 of the same nationally competitive tournaments, number of regional showcases played was just about the same, but the Northern California team also played in two more nationally competitive tournaments. I didn't really count one those since it was in there home state. From a talent and competitive standpoint, they were pretty evenly matched. We ended up winning the game in extra innings by one run to advance, but the game could have gone either way. Anyway, my point is that if my DD's team is going to make more of a name for themselves and get more exposure by larger softball schools, the player fees have to be more than $2,000, or $1,000, or $800, or whatever, or a larger budget funded one way or another for the other NC teams. I have shared this story with other parents from my DD's team and a few others from other NC teams, and most of these parents reactions are slight gasp or looks of disbelief. As it takes more money to play in more nationally competitive tournaments and more often, it also takes a lot more money to build top notch facilities, get more TV time on bigger networks, more scholarship money, and more money to get better coaches to make ACC teams better.

 

16-2 win Fla. over Bama

huh? how did this happen???

 

Bama's pitching was just not equal to Florida's hitting.

 

I hope ASU has the same problem. Florida has a team full of model hitters.

Go Gators!! At least for this year.

 

I agree...Go Gators!!

 

14-4

ASU 14 - FLA 4....... OH MY

 

just...

...wondering. did asu's pitcher throw a riseball by flipping it 67mph? based on her follow thru, it looked like she flipped it versus tucking her finger and throwing it conventionally. she was very overpowering.

 

She's not flipping it and it's not really a rise ball

Escobedo is throwing nothing but a high fast ball. She, her coach and the announcers might call it rise but it's not. She's essentially a two pitch pitcher; fastball + screwball. She showed a few changes but clearly does not trust it. Her mechanics (stepping left of powerline, never getting open) preclude her from throwing an effective curve.

Why is she successful? She can bring it 67/68 and is truly 'effectively wild'. When was the last time the winning pitcher in the WCWS had as many walks as K's in the championship game. Bottom line, unless you daughter is 6'0" and close to 200 pounds I'd suggest she find someone else to model her mechanics after.