Congrats to 2011 Pitchball Champions - ER Pitchball Black!

From Head Coach Gary Maki:  "We followed up our 2nd place regular season finish with a 4-0 run in the playoffs to bring home the victory for ERAA!  We had a pretty strong Sunday performance with a 17-2 win and a 25-7 win the championship game.  Finished the year 12-3, and the girls made some great new friends and had a blast."

Coach Bremseth's 10U Team Shows What Raptor Spirit Is All About

On Sunday, June 6, Mark Bremseth's 10U softball team became Co-Champions of the Tricounty Tournament. The girls "played their hearts out with phenomenal pitching, stellar fielding, timely hitting and flawless base running" - resulting in a co-championship with Eagan. 

Coach Bremseth recapped, "...both teams struggled to stand upright in the dark and we decided the Co-Champ solution was best. At about 9:00 that night, both teams agreed that 'enough is enough' and decided to end it with Eagan getting the #1 seed to State (as they were the higher seed coming in). ER Gold received #2 but declared the tournament a draw between the two teams and naming them Co-Champions.  New medals will be made and distributed at State."

 

"These young ladies have come a long way since struggling to eek out a couple of wins against a week team in our first game and now we look forward to state as the #2 seed in the highest 10U bracket.  To coin a phrase, 'these girls ROCK'! "

Get Ready for Fall Softball!

Fall Ball is just around the corner!   
We need both players and volunteer coaches! Cost per player is estimated to be about $75.00 per player. Registration will be available on our website. If you are interested in coaching, please contact Art Plautz.

View Tri-County info

Clinics are available! See details and sign-up forms.

Tryouts for the 2012 Softball Season will be October 1-2, 2011 at ERHS Fields. Watch for more details on our website.

Congratulations Raptors!
Three East Ridge softball teams qualified for Nationals. 10U Gold - Coach Mark Bremseth, 12U Gold - Coach Todd Youngstrom and 14U - Coach Bob Falk. Outstanding results for our 2nd full year and only having 6 teams!! These same three teams were also first place tournament winners!
 

 View game highlights

View game highlights

View game highlights 

Good Luck to all Raptor Teams in upcoming games and tournaments. Have a Happy and Safe 4th of July!

Thanks to all the Raptor teams that helped make the Sunday Social Skills event a success!

Do you have photos of your favorite team you'd like to share? Put them in your coach's Drop Box and we'll post to the website, Facebook and online newsletter. 

Raptor Rec Classic T-Shirts

We will have a tent set up early Saturday to pick up Raptor Rec Classic TShirts previously ordered.  We will have a limited supply of extra shirts.  Cost is $15/shirt due on pickup.

New Woodbury Fields Policy enacted by City Council

On Wed, June 8th, the Woodbury City Council passed a resolution changing their approach to permitting fields for in-house sports programs beginning in 2012.  The City Council of Woodbury does not support having in-house sports (those that use outdoor fields) that follow a school draw.  A series of meetings will be held with the respective associations in July to explain the new directive.  The criteria for granting this exclusion and the City Council directive is attached.  As we understand the policy - only one association will be granted Level III priority. 

How does this potentially affect ERAA?  If we are not granted Level III status, then we will fall under a lower Priority Level and will have to pay for field use and will have use of fields not claimed by the Level III program.   If you value what we have created and believe this policy is unfair to those in the East Ridge community please voice your concerns to your city council member:  http://www.ci.woodbury.mn.us/government/mayor-a-city-council.  Additionally, the Cottage Grove Parks and Recreation Department is considering a mirror-image policy as well.  To contact them go to http://www.cottage-grove.org/parks.htm

We welcome your comments and questions and look forward to working with you to continue to provide a place for our girls to play recreational softball with ERAA.

To reiterate our current state of ERAA Raptor Rec Softball:

We play cooperatively in a league with CGAA

We have not had an issue with scarcity of softball fields – in our two seasons of play the City of Woodbury has allocated the Bailey 3 and 4 fields to ERAA Raptor Rec – with remaining fields in Cottage Grove. 

We have doubled in size and now have over 100 families in the Rec Softball program alone.

Feel free to contact ERAA Raptor Rec Softball Director Bruce Bialka at bbialka@comcast.net with comments and questions.  Go Raptors!!

Congrats Raptor Rec All-Stars!!

Congratulations to the girls selected to represent their Raptor Rec teams in the upcoming All-Star Games:

Minors

Gold     Hanna Struss

Gold     Amber Van Voorst

Gold     Samantha Wynn

Black    Mikayla Manders

Black    Allison Marcus

Black    Nicole Noreen

Black    Marissa Fischer

Pee Wees

Gold     Isabella McDonnell

Gold     Grace Anderson

White   Maddie Knupp

White   Maria Soutor

Black    Abagael Cook

Black    Ella Stegeman

Pitchball

Gold     Anna Vlaisavljevih

Gold     Taylor McGowan

White   Alison Quirk

White   Ellie Flynn

Black    Meghan Tracy

Black    Kylee Leithauser

Join Us for Softball Social Skills Tonight!

Don't forget! Tonight is Social Skills Sunday! Join us at ERHS Fields at 6PM for a 1 hour practice with Eric Heflin, followed by a BBQ dinner. This week, Eric will cover fielding skills and base running.

Mark your calendar- the last Social Skills clinic will be on Sunday June 19 from 6-8 PM. Location to be announced.

Social Savvy

TwitPic is a service that can be used to add photos and videos to your tweets, making them more likely to be read and shared with others. To use TwitPic, simply visit www.twitpic.com and sign in using your Twitter login information. From TwitPic’s homepage, you can browse the photos and videos on your computer and select one for upload. After allowing space for the TwitPic length, you will have 114 remaining characters for your tweet. 

Take the Softball Challenge and Win a Gordman's Gift Certificate!

There's still time to step up to the challenge! Answer the Softball Challenge Questions on the ERAA Facebook page. For everyone that posts and answer, their name will be entered into a drawing for a Gordman's gift certificate. (It doesn't matter if someone has already posted an answer, you will still be entered into the drawing if you post an answer). Correct answers will be posted in July.