gosaints10

Both of these teams are very strong and should give everyone they play much trouble. Sorry to go off this topic, but does anyone know who won the GPS vs. Ooletawah game earlier this week?

Game was scheduled for Tuesday night and was cancelled / re-scheduled due to lightning/rain. Don't know when this particular game will be re-scheduled but the two are scheduled to play again next Tues April 3rd.

Trinity Christian won the St. Benedict tournament this past weekend. Along the way, they beat Horn Lake (one of the best AAAAA teams in Mississippi, SBEC (another strong Miss. team), and St. Benedict. St. Benedict is not as strong as they were last year but they are still very good. TCA has all the ingredients: superior pitching, strong defense, and solid offense. It's the first time I've seen them play and they are a tough team.

I agree totally with your comments and think it will be very difficult to monitor and enforce. That said, I believe part of the impetus was to prevent High School coaches from "forcing / strongly recommending" that their school athletes play on a "high school sponsored team" (potentially coached by a volunteer associated with the high school and wearing the high school uniforms) during the summer travel ball. Reason being is that does two things that are deemed unfair: a) it's like additional practice for the high school team and extending the season by playing travel ball tournaments (in 16U or 18U), and /cool.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="B)" border="0" alt="cool.gif" /> it put some kids in a situation where they felt they had to play on that team (because their high school teammates all were doing it and their coach expected it) vs. playing on a more competitive travel ball team during the summer. The latter being potentially bad for the athlete----particularly a star athlete that really was better served playing on a "Gold" / "College Exposure" type team that could qualify and go to bigger tournaments-----as opposed to a high school team that's playing 16u/18u ball in local / regional tournament formats. Thus, there's a perception that the high school team has an unfair advantage (more time playing together for the team) AND, on the flip side, those high school that "require that" may put undue pressure on a college-bound athlete to participate on a team that's not going to compete at the level during travel ball that's best for them. Again, high school coaches aren't supposed to coach after a certain date and there really is no "high school sponsored teams" because they all have to be affiliated/register with USSSA, ASA, USFA, or one of the other governing bodies to play but the reality is there are high school teams competing in these tournaments with a volunteer coach and they simply registered the team through their local city youth athletic association. I am aware of some specific situations where this was the case, however, I don't have specific knowledge that this is what drove this crazy new rule. I think this rule will probably address those two things above but will unfortunately create strife for a bigger population of athletes--- particular those in non-metro areas that simply want to play competitive ball in local tournaments during the summer.

Bottom line is that Craigmont is just that bad (as are most of the Memphis city schools). Bolton has a nice team with some good hitters but there are a lot of teams that could hang that many on Craigmont without trying real hard. Game only went 3 innings and there were 24 hits and 38 runs scored. Lots of walks and nobody to catch the ball when the ball is hit leads to major offensive production by the opponent.