All About Fastpitch Softball Blog

The Roosevelt Rough Riders won the Hawaii High School OIA Softball Championship this past weekend.  Congratulations to Coach Okamura and his staff and of course, to the girls!  Roosevelt showed an excellent display of teamwork with everyone contributing something.  Apparently they also worked very hard this season in their training (I’ve heard rumors of tire flipping and sled dragging – and a player made reference to “all that running”) and it showed.

Congratulations Roosevelt!

In addition to all the hard work Roosevelt did, I think their success is also attributed to their approach. There was something Coach Clay said in the newspaper article about their championship win that caught my eye.  It was a topic I had wanted to talk about, but didn’t really know how to go about it or explain it well.  Hopefully by referencing this article, it will help, so I’m going to try.

In the article, Coach Clay said, “To be honest, we didn’t really think about (an approach to Mililani’s lineup),” Roosevelt coach Clay Okamura said. “Mililani is a mean team, take nothing away from them. But we didn’t think about (them), we were more concerned about what we had to do.” That’s a big part of why they won.

Too often we focus on our opponent. The pitcher has a great change up.  Their batters can hit the ball.  They’re great at putting down the bunt.  They’re aggressive on the bases.  Watch for the rise ball…etc, etc, etc.  Not that it’s wrong to know your opponent, but I think it’s a mistake for them to be your primary focus. Read more…

Technorati Tags: championship, focus, Hawaii softball, high school softball, Mental Game, OIA

Congratulations to the Kamehameha-Kapalama Varsity Softball team for winning this years DI Hawaii High School State Championship! I would post a link to the news story, but the game just ended so it’s not up yet. But Kamehameha defeated Mililani 3-0 in tonight’s State Championship game. Kamehameha allowed no runs throughout the tournament which reminds me of a phrase I like to tell a defense, “They (meaning the other team) can’t win if they don’t score.”

Anyway – congratulations again to this year’s State Champions. A link to the story and pictures will be posted at http://hhsaa.org/sports/softball.

Also – congratulations to Pac-Five for winning the DII championship tonight as well. It’s an ILH sweep of the State Championship titles this year – wow!

Technorati Tags: high school softball

Wow I just read an article about a high school softball league who’s state tournament is only 2 days long. Not only that, it’s double elimination with 16 teams! So a team can play as many as 6 games in two days (up to 4 on the second day). Now, I’ve done this before (play 4 games in one day) and I have to admit that, by that last game, you do feel tired. And I’m not even a pitcher. I can only imagine what a pitcher feels like after having to pitch multiple games in a row. Now, in college, it’s not so bad, most teams are equipped to have some kind of back up so that one pitcher does not have to pitch all the games. But in high school, it’s different.

This article also talks about the mechanics of pitching and the stress or lack thereof on the shoulder. That’s fine, but what about the rest of the body? The shoulder isn’t the only part involved in pitching.

I’m just a bit surprised at the format of the tournament they talk about in the article because our state tournament here in Hawaii is only 12 teams, single elimination and it runs over the course of 4 days (and does include teams from outer islands who travel away from school to come and play). Now I’m not saying the girls are not capable of it. I’m sure lots of the girls LOVE playing that many games in a short period of time. I would have, but that doesn’t mean it’s the best way to do things.

In high school, the team I was on entered lots of pre-season tournaments where we played a number of games in a short period of time, but pre-season is very different from post-season. In pre-season, you’re usually carrying extra players (those trying to make the team), you’re doing lots of subsitutions (to give everyone a chance to see what they can do), and the “Big W” isn’t all that important. In post season, it’s a completely different story.

I just can’t imagine why a state would run a 16 team double elimination state tournament in just two days. There’s probably a logistical issue I’m not considering? But I would hope that, for the sake of the girls, they’d come up with a better way to run the tournament. What do you think? Read the article here, then leave me a comment below with your thoughts.

Technorati Tags: fastpitch softball, high school softball, pitching