Pony R&E Night is smooth sailing

Syosset-Woodbury Park 13 January 2010—As the hours leading up to tonight's R&E ticked away, we sat wondering what would happen. This is our first year of online registration and the system was barely functional a week ago. Would people remember to bring their printouts? Would everyone come for evaluation? Would we have a lot of people still paying in cash or by check? Would it be a madhouse?.

In all, we registered and evaluated 75 girls for Pony League tonight. We signed up plenty of coach-candidates and we seem to be doing okay for sponsors for the Pony League so far. More are actually registered than came down tonight; we hope they are planning to come on one of the other nights.

Overall, the environment was calm and collected. Tempers were serence compared to years past with all the lengthy waiting in the halls. So far, it looks like online registration for SYAC is here to stay

About the Pony League...

The Pony League is for girls in our community who are in 2nd or 3rd grade as of January 1st. Even though the pitching is still done by parents at this level, this is where SYAC Girls Softball begins to become competitive.

Once kids hit the Pony League, many of them may have already been to camp or met kids who don't go to their schools and are thus not traumatized by being placed on a team that could potentially be made up entirely of children they have never met. At this age, we no longer honor requests to be with specific other children, which, if you think about it a while, is really is a good thing. We also do not honor requests for kids to be together for carpooling purposes (see FAQs page). At this level, SYAC Girls Softball begins to focus more on the sport than on the social aspect of the game.

In setting up teams for the Pony League, we work hard to create balanced teams, rather than simply putting kids together with their friends, as we do when they're in our Instructional League. At this age, we strongly discourage parents from trying to get their children on the same teams as friends, for whatever reason. This is a competitive league, and, as such, fairness is a key to making it fun, and inclusive, for all kids. And in the course of playing a season in SYAC, strangers always become friends.

The 2010 season is tentatively scheduled to begin on Monday, April 19, 2010. Registration and Evaluations take place in January. Once placed on a team, your child will be contacted by her coach sometime around the beginning of April.

All games take place weeknights at 6:15pm and go until they end (6 innings) or it gets too dark or too cold to play. Cancellations due to inclement weather will be announced on the web on the home page and on this page and on the SYAC Girls Softball Weather Line (516) 733-4066.