Our Summer Team and Summer Schedule (2025's)

Not sure about my 2025 schedule yet. The plan from what we have been told is 7 tournaments in 8 weeks, all but 2 in Texas. They will get the 4th of July weekend off. But, as you know Texas is a big state, so that could still be up to 6 hours away. LOL

We can open this topic up a bit because frankly our forums are almost dead right now with not much to talk about.   Indeed Texas is an enormous state and I don't see any need to travel outside those confines.  My understanding from being a member here for years is that certain areas of Texas (e.g., Houston, Dallas, San Antonio) are crawling with scouts.  Ohio is also large geographically but we also play teams from Michigan, Pa, Canada, Kentucky, West Virginia, and western New York, for example that travel.  Our team did not travel outside the state last year but the Columbus trip is three hours and the Cincinnati trip is four hours, for example.  We'd have to travel to Dayton to get six hours within the state (far northeast to the far southwest part of the state).  Two years ago we travelled to Ripken in South Carolina and that was a great experience.  Our team is a good team.  We don't have elite pitching but it is very good and we are good at fielding and hitting.  I estimate we have one or two D1 players, maybe a D2, and probably every kid can at least play at the next level at a JUCO or D3 school, for example. 

TxballDad - tell about your 2025 team if you don't mind.  Anyone else who might like to share about their upcoming 2025 team (or other class) please feel free to share as well.

ClevelandDad - I can tell you what we know so far. We decided that we needed to make a team change after last summer that didn't turn out the way we expected. Son played really well however, we did not have the opportunity to play higher level teams like we were expecting (even playing up with 2024 team). We played in a lot or tournaments on college campuses but, the high level competition just was not there for the most part. We had received offers to play for 4 other teams. We did a number of tryouts in Dec and picked what we thought was the best fit. This team (coaches) showed a lot of "love". Coaches called a number of times and were able to answer all of our questions before we made the decision. We also talked to people we knew, who had played at other age groups in this organization and it seemed like what the coaches were saying was very truthful.

We ended up going with a team made up of players for Austin, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, Houston, and El Paso (those were the cities that they had tryouts). Like you said, you do not really need to leave the state of Texas to see high level comp or be seen but, you do have to play in the right tournaments where those teams go (I guess like most places).  The bigger teams normally play (as we have seen in the past) in Houston and Melissa Texas. That is where most of the games will be played this summer. The organization is a Texas based (not national) team with a lot of connections that has made deep runs in WWBA and other large tournaments the past few years.

We do not know much about this years summers 2025 team yet. Last years 17u teams (they had 2) had 9 D1s, and a mix of D2s/D3s/NAIAs/JUCOs (30+ total commitments).

We will see how this summer goes and adjust as needed. There will be a lot of travel but, that will just be quality time with the son/family before he heads off to school somewhere in just a couple of years.

I’ll contribute because I’m needing more content too. 😁

We’re in a similar situation to TXBallDad.  Son is a 2026.  We’re in Houston and son made the team for a larger organization in the fall and now Summer. Schedule isn’t set and neither are the summer rosters.  They plan on playing 7-8 tournaments with 1-2 national tournaments.  We don’t really need to travel outside of Houston to see good /great competition.  

I enjoy traveling but one out of state tournament is enough for my wallet. I do like the benefit of playing against top national competition at regional or national tournaments.  It’s always good when they see talent above theirs or are challenged at an higher level and adjust their sights on new goals (esp if they get their butts kicked).  

We are in columbus July 1st

Midwest challenge June 15th in ohio

Son is 2027. He's probably on the best team he's ever been on so far. We are in the Northeast. We have a ton of pitchers, some really good hitters but a big roster which I hate.  There are 15 listed but I know two or three will be occasional players. He plays with a national org. with a good reputation. But he's not on a team that pulls players from different states to meet up and play at tournaments. It's more like some of the better talent our area. He's going to have to fight for playing time but his bat should keep him in the line up. We will play 8/9 tournaments over the summer against good regional talent none further than a 2-3 hour drive.

The weird thing is at 14U there seems to be a lots of team but then you jump to 15U and it's like cut in half. I guess this is part of funnel narrowing that that everyone talks about.

They are all good players but are different stages of puberty so it will be interesting how it will all work out.

@BB328 posted:

The weird thing is at 14U there seems to be a lots of team but then you jump to 15U and it's like cut in half. I guess this is part of funnel narrowing that that everyone talks about.

They are all good players but are different stages of puberty so it will be interesting how it will all work out.

I was going to write something similar about the number of teams in 15u-17u, but I haven’t experienced a high school summer season yet.  It is true the number of teams does significantly drop and most tourneys are ‘open’ without separate class/divisions (AA, AAA, majors).  I did notice this fall that there were significantly fewer teams.  Outside of the bigger organizations, the rosters are mostly from the same high school.  Competition was pretty good but, in the fall, most teams were focused on getting innings for pitchers and general playing time rather than winning the tourney - like batting all 14-16 kids rather than just 9.  

The puberty factor is definitely more apparent starting at 15u+.  The younger teams do look much younger.  Our final tourney this fall was a mix of 15-18u teams.  Some were monsters.  I heard one of our boys say… you know why there aren’t any parents on the other sideline?…. Those kids all drove themselves here.  🤣Which reminded me that this journey is almost over - so enjoy it while you can!

Just got my son's 17u summer schedule.  Thank God we are only out of town 4 weeks this summer.  I guess that's the good thing of having most of the team already committed.  HA!