Opening day for Little Crest.

With it being a night game on a turf field, we should get the game in.

Our field was like 2 inches deep of mud yesterday. Had to cancel for this weekend. Next week isn't looking much better.

Romeoville and Bolingbrook are installing turf baseball fields this spring.

what northern suburb?

Answered by PM to insure the privacy of my family.

Answered by PM to insure the privacy of my family.

Well we already know it's a very rich North Shore suburb, that's for sure.

Well we already know it's a very rich North Shore suburb, that's for sure.

We lost our first four games already to weather- Tues, Wed, and next Sat doubleheader.

We aren’t doing the Florida trip this year. Our team is going to suck as my son is the only returning starter.

Haha fantastic.

We explored transferring because there was a 50% shot we would not have a team. But unless he went to his regular public school, there was a chance he would have to sit out the year. IHSA was a pain.

They cobbled together a team, but we have just three kids with any real baseball experience. I guess this is practice until our travel season where we have a powerhouse team.

Very tough call. It is sad to have your son get to his junior year and suddenly not play high school ball. Travel can’t start until high school is done, which means June.

Education has always been our top priority. But baseball has been a huge part of our lives. We love watching him play, and he loves playing.

But it’s the practice and game experience. You work indoors for 10 weeks to get ready for high school. Without high school you have a gap from late February until June while everyone else is playing.

It’s not like he gets a do over on his teenage years.

Yea, good point.

I guess I've just seen a lot of people kinda putting school ball on the backburner and just focusing on travel.

There is a lower emphasis on High School Ball because the Colleges play during the same season and the coaches cannot get out to scout, and with the advent of gamechanger and the internet, a lot of teams do not pay as many scouts to put actual eyes on prospects. (They usually use volunteer assistants when the actual coach cannot attend. You will see the actual coaches and big-league scouts at the big Perfect Game and Prep Baseball Report Showcases, though.)

In Illinois softball, it is much simpler - College coaches only really follow the Beverly Bandits, and then after that maybe the Illinois Chill, and possibly the new OC Batbuster (Jennie Finch's Team) franchise that just branched out into Illinois as a result of the California guys getting sick of the Bandits collecting players from a 1500 mile radius to go over to nationals and beat the SoCal teams. If you don't play for one of those 3 orgs, it would be very hard to get on a D1 coach's radar [as told to me directly by a coach at a Power 5 D1 school when we did a tour of the campus].

As a by-product, the level of HS competition is inconsistent at best, and sometimes downright laughable.

HOWEVER, the college coaches indeed want to see you to play HS ball, as it is one of the areas that you are forced to swim on your own, without parent involvement, and they want to see that you are able to function socially within a team that chose you, instead of a team you hand-picked where your daddy is right there next to you on the field.

Yea, I know all that, Thro.

One of my players was recruited by the Bandits which is pretty rare as I understand it. She's a freak who was throwing 60mph when she was 10.

The showcase thing is true in softball too though. It just makes sense. Why travel around to 5 games to see 5 kids when the best 200 are all in one tournament?

And yes, the HS level is pretty bad. Shepard plays at our fields. I had two 11 year olds and a 10 year old that were all better than ANY of the freshman pitchers.

One of my girls actually asked me why they throw so slow.

The part about wanting them to play HS ball is a case by case basis though. There are definitely college coaches who would urge to stick with travel/club

Lower level teams in the South Suburban conference are usually kids who never played or rarely played. Most of the kids who can play get moved up immediately. The kids who should be filling those spots are the ones who get cut by Marist, Rice, Rita, McAuley etc.

We sat down with the AD. We begged him to co-op, but he really wanted to put together our own team. He talked to IHSA on our behalf, and they said 30 day wait to join a public school and up to 365 days to another private school. IHSA will not rule on a hypothetical. You have to transfer then they rule.

We had the AD of the proposed new school call, and they would not budge.

We never got into the waiver thing. We didn’t want to transfer, but we left it up to my son. He decided against it. This season will be painful. Like so many Christian schools, enrollment continues to decline.

St Johns closed as did another non-denominational.

And season over.

OK. This explains a lot. MANY private schools suffer for the actions of a few larger schools like Loyola and Montini.

So Little Crest played hoops with a kid from Evanston, and one who transferred from Loyola.

The kid from Evanston was given a waiver by them and played immediately. The kid from Loyola had to sit out a year.