Soddy Daisy Invitational 2012

[Indian]

Now that is funny Dr. Wood!!!!

 

Everyone wants the perfect scenario for their team but its not gonna happen so just play. Nobody there was going to beat

Ms. Nunley with the way she is throwing.

 

We still haven't heard from the mysterious coachkirk, are you out there?

 

 

Nobody would want or expect a perfect scenario. If Seq had managed somehow to get past SD and made it to the final they would have had 6 games Saturday. The teams playing all pool games Thursday or Friday and not starting play until gold or silver bracket games, and avoiding the "play-in", would play 3 Saturday if they made it to the final. Quite a bit of a difference. A solution, maybe, switch the schedule around slightly where everyone played at least one pool game Saturday morning. Switch some of the pool games back to Friday evening for teams that were scheduled to play two. This wasn't just for Sequatchie, it affected Ballard, Cleveland and Morristown East also, the other teams in that pool. I don't recall all the late Friday schedule but it seemed like Baylor was out there late Friday night and out there very early Saturday, something else that could have been avoided. No teams should have been playing last Friday then early Saturday.

 

Beating Soddy-Daisy would be a challenge if they were playing their 10th game of the day with that pitching. Still I'd much rather go out there relatively fresh against them especially when they're taking the field for the first time. If the umpire knew the rule that game would have been 1-0, potentially one pitch away from being tied at any time. No matter how strong the pitcher, even one of the best in the state and in the Southeast, is there's always a chance of a walk, error, mental mistake in the field being followed up by a big hit like the double to left Sequatchie had.

Edited April 9, 2012 by Indian

[Indian]

Iwould to thank Trogan35 for all the work he did in the tour. He does not have a child playing in the Tour.When you have bad weather it causes a lot of problems I thought he did a great job .Wonder how many tour. INDAIN has ran. Good luck to all the teams that came .

 

 

Things should have been switched around even after the delays where some teams weren't loaded up on Saturday. That was the point, I don't think I can make it much more understandable than that.

[Indian]

From what it sounds like Sequatchie came the closest to beat SD even after having to play 3 game prior to that. I am excited the the Lady Indians were able to avenge an earlier loss @ Bledsoe and in convincing fashion.

 

That was a good win. Led 6-0 after the second inning. Seq had a little trouble adjusting to the slower pitcher that came in for the third inning and actually didn't hit as well vs. that one until late. They played on the 225 plate to fence field, had they been playing on the 200 feet field 3 or 4 of their second inning hits would have been home runs. In the Ballard game Saturday morning Sequatchie outhit them by 1 but had some early fielding problems that caused 3 unearned runs, after that they played very well defensively until the Soddy-Daisy game. A home run in the last regulation inning, with 2 outs, tied the game. Ballard scored one in the tie breaker. Sequatchie had one on and got her to third but a very hard hit line drive hit was caught. Holding Soddy-Daisy to four hits, two runs and one earned is something to build on even though it was a loss with just one hit and one baserunner.

 

It was a good tournament with good competition despite the scheduling questions.

[bullpencatcher]

That was a good win. Led 6-0 after the second inning. Seq had a little trouble adjusting to the slower pitcher that came in for the third inning and actually didn't hit as well vs. that one until late. They played on the 225 plate to fence field, had they been playing on the 200 feet field 3 or 4 of their second inning hits would have been home runs. In the Ballard game Saturday morning Sequatchie outhit them by 1 but had some early fielding problems that caused 3 unearned runs, after that they played very well defensively until the Soddy-Daisy game. A home run in the last regulation inning, with 2 outs, tied the game. Ballard scored one in the tie breaker. Sequatchie had one on and got her to third but a very hard hit line drive hit was caught. Holding Soddy-Daisy to four hits, two runs and one earned is something to build on even though it was a loss with just one hit and one baserunner.

 

It was a good tournament with good competition despite the scheduling questions.

 

Indian has a good point. But let’s move to the final game against Seymour. That was Seymour’s 6th game of the day. It was Soddy’s 3rd. Seymour got there before 7 am, before the sun was up. Soddy showed up around 3pm. Soddy just happened to get a bye in the first round. Soddy was one of a few teams that played all of their pool game Friday night. Seymour played one Friday and two Saturday morning. Halls had to play all three of their pool games Saturday. They lost to Grace in the final of the Silver Division. Grace also didn’t play any games that morning. After being there for 15 hours no one would have had a chance against Soddy.

 

I’m not claiming that Seymour would have blown Soddy off the field, but they definitely weren’t at their best. The result MAY have been the same. Soddy has a great pitcher, no doubt. They are supposed to be one of the best teams in the country. Why do the powers that be feel the need to give them such an advantage? We all expect a “little†home field advantage, but give me a break. Are they trying to get their own show on the Food Network? They can call it “Soddy Daisy’s Ultimate Guide to Home Cookinâ€. There were fields open on Friday night. Soddy’s players played a great game. I would like to congratulate them. They hit and played well. It just a shame that the people representing them don’t have the confidence in them to believe they will win without their help.

 

Maybe this helps to explain why there weren’t as many teams there as last year.

Edited April 9, 2012 by bullpencatcher

[MrNoitAll]

Soddy has a great pitcher, no doubt. They are supposed to be one of the best teams in the country. Why do the powers that be feel the need to give them such an advantage? We all expect a “little†home field advantage, but give me a break. Are they trying to get their own show on the Food Network? They can call it “Soddy Daisy’s Ultimate Guide to Home Cookinâ€.

 

Newbie what is the name of this tourney?? If you didn't know it is the "Soddy Daisy Invitational 2012" so that should be your first clue??? You think??? Yep when you have your name on it, YOU get to play by your rules quit bein a cry baby and get better or better yet have your own tourney and then you get to set the rules...

[fastpitchdad]

Maybe this helps to explain why there weren’t as many teams there as last year.

 

Few of the strong middle TN teams play in this tournament anymore for the same reason. Soddy is good enough on their own, they do not need scheduling and umpiring help to win. But they get it anyway. One time is enough for most coaches.

[polecat]

Few of the strong middle TN teams play in this tournament anymore for the same reason. Soddy is good enough on their own, they do not need scheduling and umpiring help to win. But they get it anyway. One time is enough for most coaches.

 

Congrats to the winners.

Lots of good points mentioned. I can understand all of them, pro or con.

 

Not to be negative, but One sad note for this high level tourney was numerous pitching violations, and the umps did not know the rules.

 

Pitchers were not maintaining contact with the dirt while in stride. crow-hopping and jumping air born. One even double stepped sideways with rear foot to clear the hip during the pitch. Was brought to umps attention, but they had no clue, and didn't even discuss it. Not to mention double presenting. To me, this is worse than anything.

 

Wish everyone the best, hope most teams had fun,......

 

Polecat

[trojan35]

The tournament is designed for all state playoff teams from the year before to be in separate pools, with the exception of Grace Baptist who asked to be in Soddy Diasy’s pool each year. We start the tournament on Thursday with teams who want to play on that date. So Indian, here is a time for you to play Soddy Daisy since you all are 30 miles from our high school field and you all will be fresh as a daisy. Some coaches fill out the form and tell me what they want and some say just put us in we don’t care. Then you deal with schools that don’t have the day off and need late playing times. Between e-mails and calls it takes me a few weeks to build the pool play to make sure every school get a fair schedule.

Now comes bracket play, and I don’t have control over how your team performs. As far as the umps go we have the assigner put them in their games requesting only the best 4 call the two championship games. So your cries about our umps have no merit, but it may make you feel better. If the brackets are not balanced then a true blind draw occurs for a team or teams to get a bye. Here again I know the truth and you can have you conspiracy theories.

Thursday night gets here and we have four teams playing. The first game is played and we are into the Soddy Daisy verses East Hamilton game when at 7:33PM a storm hits the field and rains out the game. At 8:00PM I went to Soddy Kids Park and the rain there was light and the fields were in great shape. Right after that on Weather Channel radar a storm built over that area and a hard steady rain fell for over 4 hours. We meet at the fields and I issued the delay to 12 Noon. At 7AM the next morning I got to the fields and they we in a mess. The parents along with Wes Skiles and Lamar Lasley worked to get four fields playable. The high school field was the first to get dried enough to play so we started a pool there after the debate over keeping the pools play to 3 games or cutting them down. I had to adjust the pool play schedule with coaches calling, the two ump assigners asking questions, and a few parents from other teams calling me wanting to know what was happening. So I left, went to my computer, turned off my phone due to low battery, and tried to come up with a schedule. I had roughly one hour to adjust the schedule so I drew a line on the old pool play so the last game would start at 9PM and tried to give teams Friday and Saturday games. Poor Knoxville Halls I really messed up on and gave them 3 pool games on Saturday, my apologies I did not see problem.

The bottom line is the tournament designed for all teams to have three pool games on Friday and bracket play to begin Saturday. When the rains came that scenario went out the window and unforeseen advantages and disadvantages occurred. I know I don’t design the tournament for Soddy Daisy to win. Now Soddy Daisy often plays in the finals of the gold bracket, but more times than not we have lost. Soddy Daisy plays in the gold bracket finals because they work to be winners, this starts in the two middle school programs. Since 1990 Soddy Daisy has won 7 AAA State Championships, 5 times runner-up, 2 third place finishes and one 5th place. For all you whiners out there (it is not the coaches they understood the mess I was under), do what GPS, Baylor, Grace Baptist, and East Hamilton did, call and ask to play Soddy Daisy while you are fresh.

[backoff]

The people who run the tourn. do not have any control of how the umpires call the game .Some of them called a strike at least at least a foot outside.

[Indian]

My very first sentence I used the words "if possible", things could have been done differently so teams wouldn't have been loaded up on Saturday. I mentioned the umpires, once in a game delayed about 20 minutes, because one of the articles talked about how play was backed up Saturday so at least one field that was a small part of it. I mentioned the most disappointing umpire non-call/call I saw all day-among a lot of games I saw-because that led directly to a run in a 2-0 loss. Being down 1-0 is a lot different than being down 2-0 even if the pitcher is overwhelming. I never said playing the fourth of the day was a reason for the loss, just that it made it tougher. It would have made it tougher had the opponent been GPS, Central, etc playing their first of the day also. I wasn't specifically talking about playing SD fresh regardless of day, just in that spot on the schedule so the comment on trying to schedule them for pool play instead was ridiculous I'm sure that was understood but it was just an excuse to throw in another smart-aleck comment. I agree with Seymour, playing the sixth of the day after arriving early in the morning against SD in their third would have been a huge challenge and the schedule, somehow, should have made it more reasonable for any team advancing that far. All the pools looked as if they had a good mix of top level teams, teams on their way up and rebuilding teams/unproven teams, but I haven't seen any complaining about the pools so I'm not sure why that was brought up. All the talk about the weather and field repair time was unnecessary too, everyone understands things were delayed.

 

A swap of anyone playing their third Friday-even in a revised schedule, to Saturday morning, would have helped things. Without seeing the revised bracket it looks as if it would not have been a lot of trouble to do so. Those teams also would have received plenty of advance notice. That's not always been the case. One year a team was notified during the day their third pool game was moved to very late Friday night instead of around 4 or so. The reason-one of the locals had a school function and some of their players would be unavailable. Then after ending late they were back first thing Saturday. Another year, after an all-day delay, each of the teams playing around midnight, I can't remember if it was 6 or 8 teams depending on if all fields were used, was from out of town (Whitwell, Cleveland, etc) and some had to be back first thing Saturday. It's hard to believe that was a coincidence as none of the locals was still playing late.

 

I've been to plenty of tournaments where rain affects schedules but there always seems to be drama and controversy involved in this one, rain or not. Tournaments with just as much delay had much more reasonable elimination brackets and did not have teams with much more rest. The quality of teams participating is a reason most overlook such issues but you're fooling yourself if you don't think a lot of teams question whether they should keep participating. The condescending reponses on here to what should be looked at as constructive criticism (make your own bracket, hold your own tournament, etc), just add to the perception. I'm sure the response here will be "nobody's making any team participate" etc instead of figuring out ways to make things run better.

Edited April 10, 2012 by Indian

[weasel]

My very first sentence I used the words "if possible", things could have been done differently so teams wouldn't have been loaded up on Saturday. I mentioned the umpires, once in a game delayed about 20 minutes, because one of the articles talked about how play was backed up Saturday so at least one field that was a small part of it. I mentioned the most disappointing umpire non-call/call I saw all day-among a lot of games I saw-because that led directly to a run in a 2-0 loss. Being down 1-0 is a lot different than being down 2-0 even if the pitcher is overwhelming. I never said playing the fourth of the day was a reason for the loss, just that it made it tougher. It would have made it tougher had the opponent been GPS, Central, etc playing their first of the day also. I wasn't specifically talking about playing SD fresh regardless of day, just in that spot on the schedule so the comment on trying to schedule them for pool play instead was ridiculous I'm sure that was understood but it was just an excuse to throw in another smart-aleck comment. I agree with Seymour, playing the sixth of the day after arriving early in the morning against SD in their third would have been a huge challenge and the schedule, somehow, should have made it more reasonable for any team advancing that far. All the pools looked as if they had a good mix of top level teams, teams on their way up and rebuilding teams/unproven teams, but I haven't seen any complaining about the pools so I'm not sure why that was brought up. All the talk about the weather and field repair time was unnecessary too, everyone understands things were delayed.

 

A swap of anyone playing their third Friday-even in a revised schedule, to Saturday morning, would have helped things. Without seeing the revised bracket it looks as if it would not have been a lot of trouble to do so. Those teams also would have received plenty of advance notice. That's not always been the case. One year a team was notified during the day their third pool game was moved to very late Friday night instead of around 4 or so. The reason-one of the locals had a school function and some of their players would be unavailable. Then after ending late they were back first thing Saturday. Another year, after an all-day delay, each of the teams playing around midnight, I can't remember if it was 6 or 8 teams depending on if all fields were used, was from out of town (Whitwell, Cleveland, etc) and some had to be back first thing Saturday. It's hard to believe that was a coincidence as none of the locals was still playing late.

 

I've been to plenty of tournaments where rain affects schedules but there always seems to be drama and controversy involved in this one, rain or not. Tournaments with just as much delay had much more reasonable elimination brackets and did not have teams with much more rest. The quality of teams participating is a reason most overlook such issues but you're fooling yourself if you don't think a lot of teams question whether they should keep participating. The condescending reponses on here to what should be looked at as constructive criticism (make your own bracket, hold your own tournament, etc), just add to the perception. I'm sure the response here will be "nobody's making any team participate" etc instead of figuring out ways to make things run better.

un-believable

[fastpitchdad]

un-believable

 

Agree, somebody should have said these things to coach Kirk years ago! Unfortunately, at his age, he ain't changing. If you think he doesn't control every single aspect of the tournament, I have some cheap ocean front property in Soddy that I'll make you a good deal on.