Chattanooga Teams

[dropball]

Where were the Chattanooga teams when the finals were played? Does their absence mean that the balance of power has shifted to the Mid-state?

[FPFanatic]

its been shifted for years with Ezell, Beech, Giles, etc.

Mid-state has won the lions share for years and years.

[Indian]

I did a quick count, may have been off a bit, and found 106 schools I would consider Nashville area or mid-state compared to 33 for Chattanooga/Chattanooga area. I had to go east to Cleveland and Athens and west to Grundy to get that 33. I counted schools I knew of or assumed to have softball teams. In Hamilton County you have 5 Class AAA schools-Red Bank, Soddy-Daisy, Central, Ooltewah and Brainerd, with Brainerd not very competitive. In AA you have East Ridge and Hixson (AAA to this year) and Arts and Sciences and Howard, neither that good. In A there's Boyd-Buchanan, Sale Creek, Grace, Chattanooga Christian, Lookout Valley and in Division II there's Baylor, GPS and Notre Dame. The big difference is that outside Nashville going each way you have strong teams such as Dickson and Hendersonville, some large suburban areas included, then go south into the rural areas past Murfreesboro and you still get quality teams. That may have something to do with the size of the schools though, there's Giles but most of those are larger schools with decent-sized towns like Coffee County, Columbia, Lincoln County that have put good programs together. Outside Hamilton County you have 4 Class AAA schools total and mostly have rural schools where softball hasn't gone as far as it should yet. That's something that needs to improve but as a whole it hasn't. Bradley had a good team this year late, Whitwell is usually strong and Sequatchie has been the last 4 years but over the long haul that's about it outside Hamilton County. I'd say there's no question there's many more top quality teams in the mid-state, but I'd say for the top few vs top few it's still pretty equal. A better comparison would be Hamilton County vs Davidson County, maybe not on titles each year (besides A) but head-to-head games in tournaments, appearances at the state and so on.

[Edited by Indian on 5/27/02 1:00P]