Kentucky is in an odd place sandwiched between the midwest and south, part of both but not fully either one. Ohio has a bigger population as mentioned and both Ohio and Tennessee are more centrally located to the centers of the midwest and south for recruiting purposes. Plus, Kentucky is not only smaller population-wise, but very spread out geographically. It's just as easy to travel to Birmingham from some parts of Kentucky than to northern Kentucky.

We all know the facts about this stuff. But I think what we are saying is there is more opportunities and more competitive teams in Ohio...for whatever reason you want to use.

 

Another question...we know the Sluggers and Stunners can compete at the top ages of their orgs, but do they compete with these Ohio orgs up and down all the age groups? I really don't know. Just seems like in KY, it takes time to get all the really good players to come together at the older ages on two teams to be able to compete on the level of several Ohio teams. Maybe that's the population numbers coming into play.

And how spread out players are. Both of those teams have players from several hours away from each other. Even though both of those organizations are Louisville based, a good number of the players on those teams are not from that area.

And because of that, it's less likely to build teams from 10U and up that can stay together. 10-12U teams need a lot of practice. Hard to do that when players live so far away from each other.

 

These teams come together once they get to the 14U and above level because it's necessary to get recruited.

In the Summer of 2014 you had 2 quality Louisville Lady Slugger 12u teams that competed at the ASA Nationals, one from E-town finished 25th the other from Louisville finished 33rd. I believe that if the organization had someone leading the younger age groups in 2014 they would've finished alot higher, maybe winning the Nationals that year. The talent was there.The reason I mention this is, I believe Kentucky has enough talent to compete for Nationals ever year and now that it has some direction with Lisa Pinkston and Josh Bloomer helping run the younger groups, it should take off.

Nobody mentioned the Worth Cobras KY.

Just for fun I took 10 minutes and named 30 organizations in Ohio that field at least 5 different teams under the same team name. Meaning a 10u,12u,14,16u and 18u team . And I'd bet there are 10-15 more I cant remember. 30 organizations fielding complete teams through every age group ( or at least 4 out of the 5 age groups) . Thats a bunch of players .

Why would they mention Worth Cobra's. Not being a jerk but they've been around less than 12 months which is not long enough to be considered a historically good club.

I didn't know Worth Cobras had a Kentucky team until this thread.

a guy from up north in Ohio added 13 more org's that offer all age groups - Thats 43 different organizations .

Yes Worth Cobras have only been in KY for one yr but the organization has been around for several years originating in Georgia. They were discussing teams that play a high level National schedule and they do just that.

We've played the Georgia teams, didn't know there was one in Kentucky. Probably younger than 16U I take it?

Some other softball folks from Ohio came up with 8 more orgs bringing the total to over 50 organizations that field teams at all age groups .

There are like 50 cities in Ohio with a population over 30000, and less than 10 in Kentucky. This isn't that hard to understand. I bet Texas has more travel organizations than New Mexico, too.

Bottom line: in Kentucky (at least NKY) Soccer, Basketball, and Volleyball get their claws on most girls in early grade school years and suck them in.