Scheduling for HS Teams

[The Man In Blue]

DD2 HS team has got to be the worst team I have seen in recent memory. They just don't have the experienced players nor pitching. Tuesday's night's game was a 2.5 inning beat down. 18-0. They held them to 2 runs in the 1st inning and then our pitcher went on to either walk or HBP the entire roster twice. Scoring 16 runs in the 2nd. We only had 6 AB's the entire game. Yeah Yeah Yeah. Get better right.

When you know that your team is getting nothing out of a game why not put your 2nd and 3rd stringers in the game to make good use of everyone's time? No one learned a thing about each other's team that they already didn't know. Thankfully the game only lasted an hour. I spent the same amount of time driving to and from the game.

Amen. I teach at a large, inner-city high school and we are lucky to get enough players for a team. We have 12 players right now. Three have never played before. We have one upper-classman playing. We will likely lose multiple weeks to eligibility issues. Yet, we play in a big school, competitive conference.

I do not understand why coaches don't just put their JV team out there. Their JV team will still stomp us easily. Nobody is getting anything valuable in a varsity vs. us game.

The school coach my daughters played for was like this too. When we are killing/getting killed, get your other players in the game. Otherwise, we see what actually happens ... girls get sick of riding the bench and leave the sport altogether. Eventually, nobody gets to play.

 

[Lemond]

I do not understand why coaches don't just…

In most cases, if it doesn’t involve hubris, it does involve ignorance.

 

[Lance Steckler]

they put the varsity out there to issue the 5 inning beatings (yes 5 inning minimum, regardless of score) and ensure that stats are properly padded for their favorite minions. At least thru 2-3 innings, then sub in reserves. watched it every year versus the weaker teams in our conference. That #1 pitcher gets her 9+K, and 0 runs, bunch of cheap dingers, rbi's etc.

rather than completely resting starters and playing all reserves and still getting the easy wins. Gotta pad those meaningless stats

 

[BB875]

I guess it depends on your players. I understand what some of you are saying about 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. However, when you know you have talent, it makes no sense to me to play weaker teams if you can help it. Our conference has been fairly weak over the years. We have to play those games. No choice. When I took over the program 6 years ago we were in fairly easy weekend tourneys. The talent was there so I trashed that old weekend schedule the following year and we played the best schools we could find. Yes, when you play outstanding competition, it does expose your weaknesses. Its great information handed to you on a platter. Even when you're facing a dominant pitcher, the kids have to learn to compete! Compete at the plate, communicate tendencies, look for your pitch, be disciplined. How else are they going to learn to compete? For me, everything is in preparation for the year end tournament to get to State. Take losses, but learn something. Get better. Learn you can get behind in games, but still have the ability to come back. Every game you get 21 outs, each one is precious. Make them productive. If you give the other team 4-5 outs per inning, you won't win games. When your kids beat a team they had no business even playing, their confidence soars. Our job as coaches is to motivate our kids to play beyond their ability, to overachieve. Go against the best teams in the state, play them tough, and good things will happen. Now my school has a reputation for good softball. Kids graduate, others move in and the level of play moves up and down. Last year we took some beatings, bad beatings because we played the same schools as a few years ago. But so what? How can your kids believe in what you're selling if you don't force them to play at a higher level. Our goals are win conference and get to State. We've won conference each year and got to State 4 of those 6 years. This year our pitching is down a little, so we're going to have to figure out other ways to win. The expectations are the same. I have 4 young pitchers with great attitudes and understand their role. None of them are strike out pitchers, so we talk about generating pop flies and ground balls. We are going to get hit, but can we limit the damage? Can we improve in other aspects of the game? That's my 2 cents...