How many games?

[tghorley]

Maybe I am thinking wrong, I am kind of a math nerd. There are approx. 37 weekends there, give or take. Minus a month off (4 weekends)=33 weekends. Never played back to back weekends =33/2 is 16.5. 16.5 weekends / 124 games = an AVERAGE of 13.3 games per weekend!

I stand corrected, I was quoting from memory originally and at my age, that is not a good thing. So I went back to gamechanger to check and they actually played 118 games 90-28). There were also two instances where they did play back to back weekends and 1 tournament was week long at the beach. Oh, and they only took three weeks off in August. They started play on Mar 5th and the last game was Nov 20th

This was a very good team but for some reason in bracket play, they lost a lot of first games and had to fight back in the loser's bracket to win some tournaments or get to the championship game. I know a couple of weekends they played 8 games.

I am no math nerd and don't know how it works out per weekend, but if gamechanger is correct, they played a lot of games.

Went back and checked gamechanger and spring/summer they played 81 games and the fall they played 37.

 

[Ken Krause]

I think part of it depends on where you live. If you're up north like me you're probably not going to start outdoors until late April. You might schedule games or tournaments but no guarantee that you'll get them in. If you're down south and can play outdoors in January or February you can get a lot more games in, and you can spread them out over a longer period of time.

I may be in the minority here, but I think you still have to give kids time to do things outside of softball. Give them an opportunity to experience other things in life other than hanging around a tournament. You'll end up with more well-rounded kids, and you'll avoid the dreaded burnout that is plaguing so many these days.

 

[YOCOACH]

Everyone always told me that the 12u schedule was the most grueling. I can tell you it's true. We play a six week Spring league until mid-March. At the end of March (31st) we hold our own indoor tournament which is a 3gg. With that exception, we are playing a tournament every weekend through the end of July which will be a 3gg and more than likely at least 4 games per tourney. That's 4 months of solid tournaments. 17 weekends multiplied by 4 games added to 3 games from our tournament added to 6 weeks of 2 game per week league equals 83 games for the season. As Ken said, being from NE Ohio we'll be very lucky to get them all in though.

 

[02Crush]

Maybe I am thinking wrong, I am kind of a math nerd. There are approx. 37 weekends there, give or take. Minus a month off (4 weekends)=33 weekends. Never played back to back weekends =33/2 is 16.5. 16.5 weekends / 124 games = an AVERAGE of 13.3 games per weekend!

Man o Man I was with you on this line of thinking....
In Rec Ball we played 10 games plus preseason and post season tournaments. Maybe 16-17 games.

In TB we played 6 tournaments in the fall. 4 GG's plus more if you win so we played about...
30+ games. In Spring 2012 we will play 10 tournaments where GG's fall to 3. So we will see somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50 games. I think 70 in Spring seems high...I suppose if you played every weekend though...???? I think I gotta go with Ken on this one. We want to be able to hit the lake every so often, do other things, have time for church, friends outside of SB, Let the kids run around and play, etc....All this makes for a more rounded life.

 

[mad hornet]

75 games sounds like a good schedule. Last year we played 77 with our 11u team from March - July (Ohio). If you count the previous fall season and indoor league it was a total of 106. I am counting friendlies in that number however. I never heard anyone complain it was too much.

 

[Coach JV]

75 games is a vague estimate based on how deep into tournaments the team plays

 

[WinThemAll]

At 12U A, we also average about 75. I have a tendency to over schedule. It always seems that we get a few rain outs. Last year we had two tournaments get completely rained out, and at least three that were rained out on Sunday.

I think that it also needs to be kept in mind, if the players are also playing league or are going to be playing school ball in the fall. It can make for a very long season.

Only about 10 years ago, we didn't start tournaments till after Memorial Day, everything was over at the end of July. No fall ball, no winter ball around here.

 

[redhack]

DD did 20 leauge games, 7 tournaments, one with a 9gg, others averaged 4gg. Total 55 for B TB. 14 more in rec leauge. All from march through mid July. 16 more in Sep - Oct for fall ball. Total of about 72 for the year.

Games are not the problem, the grueling grind of practices take there toll. Shut her down for 3 weeks before fall ball and over Xmas. Also made her skip a couple of practices mid season, when I could she her wearing down. May through June it is almost every day of the week. She would keep going if I let her. But a day or two at the lake or pool in June did more for her than chasing grounders in 96 degree heat.