Scheduling games for HS age teams

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Apr 13, 2015
179
28
How tough of a schedule do you head coaches have for your HS teams? What is your philosophy on" playing the best, to be the best" type mentality?
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Only one other school in our conference has baseball/softball, so we basically have the Notre Dame football schedule.

Our team, as a whole, is significantly better than it was in 2017 when our varsity team played its first season. But we still end up within a game or two of .500 each year because I keep upping the level of competition. It's better for the girls and their development, but where we should standout as the clear best team at the school, it doesn't necessarily seem that way just going by records.

This year, I could see us winning 75% of our games or 30% of our games or anywhere in between. It's going to be strange. With all the players we lost, I have no idea what we're going to be like. Except I have a pitcher and a catcher and they may carry us. The pitcher should dominate a bunch of teams, but the problem is I can't schedule a bunch of really tough teams just to challenge her because we as a team are going to need time to develop in order to compete with those teams.

I have 23 games scheduled right now. We're definitely going to lose two of them. There are 9 or 10 more where I think we can win, but if we do, it will probably be because my pitcher dominated. The rest are games we'd better win.

I think this is the right way to schedule non-conference games, though of course we never really know for sure how good we or the other teams will actually be, so my calculation could be off. That just so happens to be our entire schedule.
 
Dec 2, 2013
3,410
113
Texas
DD's team is gonna be horrible. They haven't had a real pitcher since 2019. Their non district schedule is against similarly horrible/slightly better teams. Why get your A$$ handed to you in non district when that will be the case in District? Gonna be splitting time between College DD and HS DD. Last year of softball for both.
 
Feb 7, 2014
547
43
I've lived in a few different parts of the country (usa) over the years and the thinking definitely varies from one locale to the next. Growing up in a small school system we never played the larger schools and conference play consisted of an hour or two on the bus. That being said the school system my DD grew up in (also small) was willing to take on anyone and the larger schools would schedule them. Looking back I don't see an upside for david to play goliath unless there's a chance of legitimate competition, and even then why would goliath face the scrutiny?
 

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