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Jan 31, 2015
249
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Too late for this year, but if you're looking for a wide variety of competition from many states and even some Canadian teams, PA's Memorial Day Madness tournament is usually well worth the trip, since it's a 3 day, 8-10 game guarantee, although it's not affiliated with any sanctioning body.

Hi,

My daughter is on a very good team that will be 12U next year and based in Eastern Canada.
Our primary goals will targeting our provincial and national championship events.

I find the number of sanctioning bodies in the US difficult to track and coordinate.
Can any of you help to explain the proliferation of "World Series" or "Nationals" tournaments that are out there?
How they rank, from both a competition and "fun' factor? Difficulty in qualifying?
Any experience playing other teams from Canada?
Assume we'd focus on playing in the NorthEast Region, from Maine to Ohio.

I'd like to see our team tested. Don't wish to travel 6-8 hours to lose (or win) by 25-0 scores.

Thanks
 
May 12, 2016
4,338
113
Heading down to Toledo, OH for the Annual Preseason Classic - 16u on May 31. Anybody have experience with this tournament?
 

2br02b

Trabant swing
Jul 25, 2017
303
43
Heading down to Toledo, OH for the Annual Preseason Classic - 16u on May 31. Anybody have experience with this tournament?

Had an incident there a few years ago and haven't been back. Probably was just a fluke, but it struck me that it was poorly organized and I haven't even looked at their tournaments (Fastpitch Classic) anymore since.

Here is what happened: We were playing a team who has a head coach who teaches his players to try to knock the 1st basemen down when they are out at one on a throw. It had already happened in the game in question and on the 2nd occurrence, the runner stuck her leg out to try to slewfoot the player covering the bag and ended up going hip to hip in a collision. The runner spun into foul territory and landed awkwardly on her left arm dislocating her elbow. No one from her team came to help her out. Our parents provided ice and comfort to this child and our head coach almost got booted from the facility for demanding that the organizers do something to get this kid some medical attention. It took 20 minutes for paramedics to be called and it took so long because the convenor kept sending a teenaged groundskeeper back and forth to communicate and wouldn't come down to the field himself or just make the call... It took our coach going to the convenor and giving him an earful to get the call made. All the while this poor kid was laying there on the dirt screaming. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth about how poorly they were equipped to deal with a problem like that.

Facility is good -usually at Rolf Park, competition should be decent.

Our sister team won the Preseason Classic last year (14U).

I thought your DD was 14U?
 
May 12, 2016
4,338
113
Had an incident there a few years ago and haven't been back. Probably was just a fluke, but it struck me that it was poorly organized and I haven't even looked at their tournaments (Fastpitch Classic) anymore since.

Here is what happened: We were playing a team who has a head coach who teaches his players to try to knock the 1st basemen down when they are out at one on a throw. It had already happened in the game in question and on the 2nd occurrence, the runner stuck her leg out to try to slewfoot the player covering the bag and ended up going hip to hip in a collision. The runner spun into foul territory and landed awkwardly on her left arm dislocating her elbow. No one from her team came to help her out. Our parents provided ice and comfort to this child and our head coach almost got booted from the facility for demanding that the organizers do something to get this kid some medical attention. It took 20 minutes for paramedics to be called and it took so long because the convenor kept sending a teenaged groundskeeper back and forth to communicate and wouldn't come down to the field himself or just make the call... It took our coach going to the convenor and giving him an earful to get the call made. All the while this poor kid was laying there on the dirt screaming. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth about how poorly they were equipped to deal with a problem like that.

Facility is good -usually at Rolf Park, competition should be decent.

Our sister team won the Preseason Classic last year (14U).

I thought your DD was 14U?
Thanks for the feedback. Believe it or not she gets older as the years go by, :). She's still 14 years old.. won't be 15 until later in the year. All the girls on her team will be 15 or under and will not turn 16 this year .. no 16 year olds. I get confused with the difference in age brackets between Canada and US
 
Last edited:

2br02b

Trabant swing
Jul 25, 2017
303
43
Thanks for the feedback. Believe it or not she gets older as the years go by, :). She's still 14 years old.. won't be 15 until later in the year. All the girls on her team will be 15 or under .. no 16 year olds. I get confused with the difference in age brackets between Canada and US


Right so that is still 14U in USA. U16 in Canada. Mine is 13 (2005) but has been playing with the same 2004 team since she was 7.
 
May 12, 2016
4,338
113
Right so that is still 14U in USA. U16 in Canada. Mine is 13 (2005) but has been playing with the same 2004 team since she was 7.
Thanks for clarifying that, that means when they travel to the States this year they will be playing girls their own age for once.. they always have to play up because of one or two players.
 
Jan 27, 2019
141
28
I umpire for Fast Pitch Showdowns in Columbus, OH. We will have tournaments as Lou Berliner Complex the last weekend of May for all ages and for 12u teams we will have tournaments July 5-7 and again July 26-28. Hundreds of teams and good competition. Usually some teams from Canada playing. I do not think I am allowed by the site rules to post the website but you can find them under Fast Pitch Showdowns. We are USA softball
 

2br02b

Trabant swing
Jul 25, 2017
303
43
I umpire for Fast Pitch Showdowns in Columbus, OH. We will have tournaments as Lou Berliner Complex the last weekend of May for all ages and for 12u teams we will have tournaments July 5-7 and again July 26-28. Hundreds of teams and good competition. Usually some teams from Canada playing. I do not think I am allowed by the site rules to post the website but you can find them under Fast Pitch Showdowns. We are USA softball

We had to withdraw from this very same tournament because Softball Ontario waited until March break to invite attendees to a 2nd tryout for Team Ontario on the same weekend. 1st tryout was in August 2018 and we had 3 players involved. Too bad, because I was looking forward to it.
 
May 12, 2016
4,338
113
Mixed feelings about Annual Preseason Classic in Toledo this past weekend. First of all, mother nature wrecked it for us. 8 hour long thunderstorm cancelled most of the games on Saturday, nothing anybody could do about that. Fortunately we had all of our games completed and went 4-0 with only 3 runs against, 35 runs for. We would have finished 1st overall in our division out of 18 teams, mathematically it was not possible for anybody to finish with less than 3 runs against. TBH, competition was not the best, which surprised me because normally state side tourneys have very good teams.

The tournament organizers decided to throw out pool play and do a blind draw for Sunday bracket play, again mother nature threw a curve ball and I understand why they did it, but it sucked for our team who played so well during pool play... because it was a blind draw we did not get a buy which we would of surely received. Also games were now drop dead 1 hour for Sunday games.. not sure why this happened because the brackets did not change on Sunday. This really came back to burn us. We coasted through the first 2 games and then in the Quarters we played a team that went 0-3-1 during pool play, coach decided to start our 3rd pitcher. We were down 3-0 after first 3 innings... and the game got really slow, time was our enemy, we could only complete 3 innings, our bats were dead and that's how we made our exit from the tournament. Hats off to the other team, but we were the better team who had a few bad innings where we couldn't catch a break and hard hit balls were hit right at the fielders.

Anyway, beautiful location in Maumee Ohio, thanks for having us. Great job by the organizers for being flexible considering the weather, but crappy format for Sunday and reduced time limit made no sense for bracket play.
 

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