SOFTBALL

Welcome to HSBBW, FutureMLBDad.

There are probably more than a few softball boards, but I doubt they are anything like the great community/family we have here. We are very fortunate to have knowledgeable, responsible and respectable posters and reasonable moderators who keep things lively but not out of control.

I love this place.

Sorry, I don't follow softball, so I can't offer any links.

RJM's daughter plays D1 softball. Perhaps he will see this thread and offer what he is aware of. You can also send him a private message via the New tab at the top of the forum.

Welcome to the hsbbweb!

Try Heybucket. From there they will recommend all kinds of other sites. If your daughter is a potential college prospect check out Cathy Aradi's website. There are a lot of links there. Buy her book on college recruiting. She IS the guru.

Appreciate the assistance. Not sure about how college's will look at my daughter 4'11" 120 and a catcher. She is very good defensively, was varsity catcher in Fresh year, now a junior. Offensive skills are OK, would like to see her get stronger but she has pop for such a little girl. Any insight would be helpful.

quote:

Originally posted by FutureMLBDad:
Appreciate the assistance. Not sure about how college's will look at my daughter 4'11" 120 and a catcher. She is very good defensively, was varsity catcher in Fresh year, now a junior. Offensive skills are OK, would like to see her get stronger but she has pop for such a little girl. Any insight would be helpful.

Is she playing 18U Gold? Or at least 18U A? While pop is good in softball, at the collegiate level it's about having a very quick bat. The reality is she probably needs to learn another position. She's very small for a catcher. But like baseball, there are different levels of college softball with a place for any talented travel player.

Advice on the Heybucket site: There are posters there who act like if the kid isn't going to play D1 they suck. It's just some of them. The most obnoxious posters are from California. It is the hotbed. But they act like they invented the game. I loved it when the Virginia Shamrocks won the ASA 18U Gold national championship.

They will be condescending to references to high school ball rather than travel. High school ball is viewed as the preseason warmup for the real thing (ASA softball). Despite the warnings there are some quality, helpful people on the site (last I checked).

She will be playing 18U A ball starting this fall. She just recently turned 16 and has a additional year for 16U ball, but with her being a junior, I feel she needs to play 18U vice 16U. We are getting ready for tryouts that start this weekend so hopefully she will have a new team (old team disbanded after being together for 4 years). Not sure where she will end up, but I agree and new position (i.e. 2nd base) is probably in her future but boy she loves being behind the plate. She plays alot bigger than she is and is not afraid of taking a collision at the plate. Thanks for advice.

Because girls physically mature faster than boys it's important to play up as high as possible as soon as possible. Recruiting starts early in softball. You can't think age. You have to think grade and college recruiting once in high school. My daughter played 18U when she was fourteen after freshman year. She played 18U/G following soph year.

Girls usually verbal early junior year following summer travel ball after soph year. But this doesn't include D3 since they don't have scholarships. Just like baseball it's not necessarily getting on a travel team as much as it's getting in front of the right college programs in showcases. Don't wait to be found. Start making a list of possible colleges NOW. Make contact and find out where they go to see players and if they have any camps. Sound like baseball? Other than softball recruiting is at earlier ages, most of what's on this site fits softball.

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