How is the season going so far?

Saw them this weekend at East Cobb. We did not play them, but they looked good. East Cobb beat them 3-0 in the semi finals. They beat the Alabama Tigers 3-1 and 2-1. The Tigers pitched two very good pitchers against them. The Hurricanes have good pitching, defense, speed,and put the ball in play. The Elite 24 is shaping up niceley for the 12U Division.

My son's team, The Columbus Sharks are 20-1 on the year and heading to Tennessee Friday for the Battle in the South tourney!
They have the Knoxville Stars their 1st game which should be a barnburner! I know the Gastonia team has a kid that goes by "squirrel" (or used to anyways) who we faced when he was on the Carolina Outlaws when we played them as U10 at the AAU and he threw some heat, then!
I know our kids are very amped up for this tourney, it should be a phenomenal time!

That's awesome Eric. Good luck down there and please report back on how the trip went. Bring home the hardware! We played the now 13u Stars in the 11u CABA World Series and they were probably one of the best teams we've ever faced.

We have not qualified yet but we are planning on playing in the Sulphur and Dallas Super NITs. We are 48-2 this year and have been playing up at 13AAA and major until this past weekend when we played 12 Major and had a Run Rule in every game.
We are very strong with pitching and offense, we do not have a lot of team speed, but we are very good at taking advantage of mistakes.
I hope to see some of you guys at the Elite 24 if we make it.

I hope to see some of you in Tennessee. We are a walking wounded team and have been all year (broken bones, not arm problems).

We'll see how we do.

Bandito, Are the Banditos not coming to KC for the Memorial Day Super NIT? I looked at the "who's coming" on KC Sports and only saw the OK Bandito's.

KC, We thought about it, but we are playing in LA. and in Dallas Super NITS in back to back weeks. We are traveling in 4 out of 6 weeks around that time. I wanted to go but some parents did not.

We played the Gastonia Hurricanes this weekend in the Battle of the South. We beat them 5-1. They are a very good team, but we through our big #1 pitcher against them. He was hitting 79mph on the JUGS gun. We played a very good Columbus Sharks team and lost 6-5. The fences were 300ft, but the gaps and dead center felt like 350ft.

Question for Eric G. Which one was your son. Mine was the left handed lead off hitter.

Mikeau, my son was #22 the 1B. You guys have a great team! Your son is a stud lead-off hitter and runner if I must say so myself!
I can not believe you did not throw the 6'2" kid against us! What a great event, we expected great things of our boys and got what we expected is about all I can say. The competition down there was SUPERB!

I agree. It was a great tourney.

Nice to meet you, Mike. Also got a chance to meet Bob (HSBBWEB).

I'm jealous... I wish we could have played there.

Rumor had it this weekend that you guys were coming next year Bandito! Any truth?

Eric G. Thanks for the kind words. The 6'2" kid had thrown 62 pitches Saturday in the win over Gastonia. My son is the #2 pitcher and he pitched "0" innigs this week for precautionary reasons. He wanted to pitch against the Sharks, but we decided we wanted him 100% for the Super NIT in Huntsville next week. After he cut the ball from the right fielder and threw out the runner at 3rd from 230ft in right field, I questioned if his arm was really sore. We did not want to chance anything with our big pitcher either. Our team has really been strict on pitch counts this year. As far as the Battle of the South goes, great atmosphere, but I would think you could get all these good teams to come to a better complex and fields. The place was in the middle of no where. Pools were very uneven. Someone needs to do some better research before pooling. Big advantage to some teams. The Sharks and Virgina Wildcats pools were in very strong. Two pools were very weak and teams did not have to use any pitching. Big advantage come Sunday.

quote:

Originally posted by Eric G:
Mikeau, my son was #22 the 1B. You guys have a great team! Your son is a stud lead-off hitter and runner if I must say so myself!
I can not believe you did not throw the 6'2" kid against us! What a great event, we expected great things of our boys and got what we expected is about all I can say. The competition down there was SUPERB!

Eric, I have no idea about where we might be playing next year. Most of the families on the team are willing to travel and play anywhere, but our coach has the 11u black team that plays as well and he tries to keep us together for most tournaments.

I just saw that CFE won the tournament. How did they look?

Mikeau, *** confirmed that the kid was hitting 79. (awesome) We have 1 kid that is close to that and 2 others that are around the mid 70's.

Mikeau, I agree the tourney is out in nowhere land, but frankly was nice being centralized like that and the fields were nice and maintained well during the rains that came. I and several of us agree that the pools were not fairly positioned. I will never take anything away from CFE but I would say your team and ECB and even the Tenn MudDawgs were the toughest we saw there and to thinkthey run ruled and held scoreless everyone they faced in their pool and semis is amazing. Their ace who I think they threw in the Champ. Pettree(sp?) was a good pitcher no doubt, why we could not hit him better I will never understand, I though for sure we could ring a few more runs up on them. This truly showed what a team with and annual game total of 100+ can do to a team with an annual of 70+, execution is key at this level of competition. We just dont face thesame dayin dayout stiff competition like you guys do down there all the time, that is what separates us from the rest, atleast for now.

The pools seemed to be a little uneven but we came to play against good competition. I know we used most of our arms in pool play. We held 2 down due to non-throwing related injuries.

It sure seems like the age change has created parity. We do not recruit players. IMO, that puts us at a disadvantage to win big tourneys but we will keep our focus on developing our kids to play in HS and college (and possibly pro ball). If we win...great. If not, we will try to get better. The cool part about my team is most of my kids will go to 1 high school.

redbird5,

I admire what you're doing with the kids you're coaching. IMO you're coaching for the right reasons. Your players are lucky to have you.

Jason

We took the boys up to Brunswick, GA this past weekend and performed very well. We started slow with a 7-5 win then won 14-0, 12-2 and 13-2 in the championship game. I hope the GA guys and gals will have us back. Oh by the way, our team is the Orange Park, FL Crush 10-U.

Mikeau, you have a personal mail....

The boys put it all together again.(10-U Orange Park Crush) We traveled to Panama City Beach and started slow again 10-5 Loss then won out and mercy ruled the championship game. we are very proud of the boys. My son pitched well for a complete game in the championship game.

Just want to give my son's team some props for their recent performances. The Kirkwood Redhawks won the June Jam in Southaven, MS this weekend and that makes 5 tournament victories in a row for the team.

Looking forward to seeing some of you at USSSA Major State in KC in a few weeks.

Dave