WV Dynasty Softball

*UPDATE* - revised tryout dates!

WV Dynasty is moving up to 14U in the fall. Save the tryouts date! Sign up link is below. We hope to see you there!

What we offer:

- Full fall and spring seasons
- Dedicated practice facility (1 location)
- Dedicated winter hitting instruction from former NCAA D2 All American and professional baseball player Mike Spry
- Dedicated winter facility for pitching practices and extra hitting reps if desired
- Growth and development on and off the field

Our track record as a 12U team
- Took our brand new team from a 5-18-1 record in the Spring of 2025 to a combined 33-12-2 record for the 2026 season (as of 5/19/26) with (2) 1st place finishes and (3) second place finishes in USA and USSSA
- Reclassified (moved up) to B in the Spring of 2026 after a successful start to the Spring season.

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Wednesday Wisdom - follow the "Window vs Mirror Principle." This is a principle that many great leaders follow and is really simple. When you are having success, look out of the window to your team and show gratitude to those around you for bringing success to the team. When you fail, look at yourself in the mirror and reflect on what you could have done better. Don't cast blame onto others when you go through hard times and instead, use failure as an opportunity to self-reflect to be better in the future. This principle is one that can stick with kids for a long time if introduced at a young age and will carry them far in their lives beyond the field!

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Huge shoutout to Stinger Sports for putting these awesome uniforms together for this upcoming season! Their customer service, responsiveness, quality and value are all top notch. Highly recommend!

Happy birthday Emma! We hope you have a great day 😁

Wednesday Wisdom - Carry your own bag

Being a responsible human and athlete is something that is taught and is not natural. This starts with carrying your own bag to and from the field. Kids are used to having their parents/guardians doing things for them, packing their snacks, preparing their drinks, reminding them to stay fueled on long days and more. As these athletes enter high school - it is expected from most teams that the players get the equipment to and from the dugout and you come prepared with whatever you need to get you through the game. Water, Gatorade, Electrolytes, snacks, whatever it is. Parents can’t enter and exit dugouts as they please to give their kids things.

It’s important for players to learn to accept responsibility for being prepared during the game at a young age so it becomes second nature in high school. “If you fail to prepare, then prepare to fail.” It might be a hard lesson to learn if they forget something, but it’s all part of the journey. Most won’t make the same mistake twice.

Carry your own bag 😊

Little different Wednesday Wisdom post today. I wanted to share my experience as a player in high school and college, and how the coaches I played for and teams I played with made a lasting impact on me and how I coach today. Bit of a long read, but I think it is useful to share my experience for athletes who may experience something similar – even at the travel level. Thanks!

I played baseball at Jefferson High School for legendary Coach John Lowery. He has the 2nd most wins in HS baseball history, is a Hall of Famer, and one of the greatest coaches of all time. He taught me a lot. He was hard on us, but open to questions. He instructed, he listened to us, and he took the time to answer our questions. He made everything feel like an open competition day in and day out. Your spot on the field never felt safe so you worked hard all the time to keep it once you got it. He had zero tolerance for bad behavior. Everyone worked hard and rooted for one another. Even as a starter, I never felt any sort of animosity from the backups in my spot. Many of the principles I follow as a coach I got from Coach Lowery.

I only started full time my senior year of high school. It was a very competitive environment as it was the only school in the county at the time. The first 4 weeks of my senior year, I went on a bit of a tear and started getting calls, emails, and letters from colleges - mostly D2 schools in WV/VA, but also a few D3 schools and JUCOs. I met with the Head Coach at Shepherd in the middle of the season in his office, and he gave me an offer on the spot. He was pumping me up, saying how much he wanted me to be a Ram and was excited to have me learn from the guys who were there. He was transparent about his plan for me, which was to redshirt behind the starting third baseman who was a senior, then get a chance to compete for a starting spot the year after. This sounded good to me and was what I wanted, so I verbally committed, but didn’t sign.

Fast forward to a few weeks later at the end of the HS season. I played in the Mid-Atlantic Baseball Classic at the Hagerstown Suns Stadium. This was effectively an All Star game for all the local HS teams in the tri-state area. The Shepherd coach was in attendance, as well as many other colleges. I hit a home run, a double off the top of their version of a green monster in center field and got MVP of the game. The coach was making it clear that I was going to Shepherd, so nobody even tried to approach me about it because that was effectively shut down. Sometimes I wonder if I had waited to verbally commit, what opportunities may have come from that day. I ended up signing with Shepherd a few weeks later. Lesson number 1 – timing is everything. Outline your schedule and wait until you’ve explored all your options before you commit to something.

Moving on to the fall season my Freshman year of college at Shepherd. The season started off great. I had a great fall season, was producing, was getting along with the team, and having a good time. Then one thing happened that kind of started the downfall of my experience on this team. We had a fundraiser called the “100 inning game” where we played 100 innings over a couple of days to raise money for the program. They brought in Shepherd Baseball alumni to play against us. Some came to pitch, some came to hit, some came to play the field. It was fun, but it was my first opportunity to show what I brought to the table in a game type environment in front of a crowd. Every out recorded by an alumni pitcher raised money, and every hit they got raised money. I stepped up my first AB of this game, excited to show what I could do to this coach, my team, and the fans who were there and I hit a home run off a pitcher who graduated the year before. It was a shining moment for me because it was off a person who was just in college ball, so it showed me that I belonged. As I was rounding 2nd base, the head coach screamed at me to go in the woods and get my own ball. Here I was – happy to succeed and show that I belonged there, and I’m getting yelled at by my coach for hitting a home run. After I got back to the dugout, he came up to me and sternly said the purpose of the 100 inning game was to raise money and not make me look like a superstar. This was extremely discouraging, and hard for me to grasp. But it set the tone for how the rest of the year went.

After that, it felt like everything changed. He was especially rude to me, dismissive of questions, made me feel bad for asking questions, and spoke to me disrespectfully. They just moved me to be the backup 1B, which I had rarely played before going to Shepherd. I had some questions here and there just because I hadn’t played the position much before, and he made me feel like an idiot with every question I had. Lesson number 2 – pay attention to how coaches talk to players. You can learn A LOT by watching a little bit of GameChanger film, watching how they interact with the kids in the huddle, how their body language is when the kids make a mistake, and how they talk to kids in open practices.

Fast forward to spring, where I went on a tear in our pre-season. I hit the crap out of the ball every BP session and lit it up in scrimmages. Remember – the plan was to redshirt me and have me compete at 3B next year. They moved me to 1B as the backup. About 10 games into the season, we went to Mount Olive, NC to play against one of the top D2 baseball teams in the country. They had a few guys get drafted off that team. In pre-game batting practice, in 10 pitches I hit 8 home runs. The coach pulled me aside after my BP session, and told me he was going to pull my redshirt and start me. The starting 1st baseman at the time was struggling a little bit at the plate, and he told me he wanted to give our 1B a kick in the (you know what) to get him going. To me – this was not a great message. First – it went against the plan. I wanted that redshirt year so I could continue to get bigger/stronger/faster and better so I could hopefully start for a full 4 years. It also felt like I was being used as a pawn to motivate someone else, rather than getting rewarded for my own play. I lost a year of eligibility because of it. Lesson 3 – if you are told a plan, use your voice in a respectful way to hold the people accountable who promised it.

I started for about 12 games or so and did ok. Batted around .250 but definitely did not perform to my standard. It was a tough stretch facing really good pitching on our spring break trip down south and against really good programs in the conference. After 12 games or so he put the original starter back in and sat me the rest of the season. That starter, Nathan Minnich, ended up going on a tear, earning all conference that year, was voted the D2 National Player of the Year the following year, and got drafted by the Red Sox in the 8th round after his senior year. He’s also one of the nicest, most genuine guys I’ve ever played ball with. He was supportive, showed mentorship, included me in what he did training wise, invited me for meals, was a great teammate, and great human. Lesson 4 – Nathan taught me that the best players don’t have to be these cocky, arrogant guys and you can be humble and still be a stud. In fact – I think his attitude, team first mindset is what helped set him apart from the rest and ultimately played a big factor in his success.

One of the biggest learning moments I had happened on the last road trip of the season. We had a few guys on the team who acted a fool when they failed. Throwing helmets, throwing bats, cussing and yelling, the whole 9. They were seniors though, and it seemed like nobody ever said anything about it and it was just accepted. We were at West Liberty at the end of the year, and the coach randomly put me in to pinch hit. I had already been feeling a type of way about how the year went down, and I grounded into a double play. I came in really mad and slammed my helmet and batting gloves and yelled out a word I won’t say on here. The coach came in and got in my grill yelling at me saying “I don’t know who the *** you think you are. You’re a freshman and haven’t done **** here.” I was never the type to do this, and I was quite embarrassed and ashamed with how I acted in that moment. It made me aware of how the environment you are in can impact your behavior. Lesson 5 – one bad apple can ruin a whole bunch. When one person acts up, it can carry over into the rest of the team. One person slams a helmet, everyone thinks that’s acceptable. One person cries on the field, everyone thinks that’s acceptable. It’s important as coaches that you set the expectation up front that there is absolutely no room for bad attitudes or behavior, as the actions of 1 almost always carries over into the rest of the team.

I wanted to share all these lessons I learned with you for a couple of reasons that I think are very valuable not only during the college recruiting process, but also where you decide to send your kids for travel ball:
1 – a good coach can make you fall in love with the game, but a bad coach can make you fall out of love with the game. I was obsessed with baseball in high school playing for Coach Lowery. Every single day I was doing something baseball related and truly loved the process/grind of offseason training, hitting, lifting, playing wall ball, and more. He brought that out of me and drove me to be the best version of myself. That changed in the span of 1 single year playing for a coach that I despised. I dreaded going to practice, felt nervous even taking infield at practice like I was going to get yelled at or berated for making an error. I couldn’t play freely because the voice in the back of my head kept saying “don’t mess up”, which was driven by how I was talked to as a human being by my coach. It was so bad that I didn’t even watch a baseball game for 3 years after I left the team. This 1 year difference can happen to anyone at any age. The importance of good coaches for growing the love of the game for kids cannot be overstated.

2 – do your research and go where you’re wanted. Had I taken the time to do my research and surveyed current and past players and families – I likely wouldn’t have gone to Shepherd. It is completely appropriate to do this, as every year you play somewhere is possibly a year of progress or a year of regression. Get the full details of the environment, culture, chemistry, and how the coach talks to the kids. How are their practices? Is it an open competition for playing time or is it always the same kids playing the same spots every single game? Do they actually instruct and are they open to questions? Ask them questions about the role they envision your child will have on the team. So many coaches and organizations will just blow smoke to get you in the door, and stop with the effort there. You need to go where you’re truly wanted, where you will thrive, where you will get opportunity, and where you get rewarded for doing the right things.

Lastly – behavior matters. Crying on the field and in the dugout after mistakes, walking on the field, throwing helmets and bats, yelling at each other, sitting with your arms crossed moping on the bench after a mistake brings the whole entire team down. I went from a team at JHS where this never happened, to a team where this always happened and I cannot begin to explain how that made me feel as a player. The mental headspace you are in as a player surrounded by positivity makes you perform at such a higher level compared to a toxic environment. This is why we enacted a “10 second rule” on our team to have 10 seconds after the play to be upset, be mad at yourself but after that your time is up and it’s time to move onto the next play. There’s no room for lingering awkward tension from mistakes that are inevitably going to happen in a game played by humans.

I wanted to share my experience with everyone. The good and the bad have both shaped me into the coach I am today, and I think we do a good job living by the principles that I learned from Coach Lowery and avoiding the actions by the coach that effectively made me fall out of love with the game. I hope this is helpful for everyone when it comes to deciding where to take your kids now and in the future, and hope this is helpful for the coaches reading this to hopefully give you a different perspective into the importance you play in driving love for the game. Thanks and have a great day!

- Coach Bryan

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Runner up finish at the USSSA Summer Jam Super Regional NIT! Super proud of how these girls battled all weekend - especially today with 4 games in the heat over 8 hours. Great last C tournament! 2 wins and 2 runner ups to start the spring season. Way to go!

Wednesday Wisdom - winning isn't everything.

One of my first insights into how cutthroat the travel softball world can be came during our lowest time last year. We were hardly winning any games, getting blown out for many of them, and from the outside looking in it looked like a failure. One of the parents on my team approached me and said they were asked by someone from another organization "aren't you tired of having a bunch of parties, but losing?"

Even during the midst of this, I prioritized the things outside of winning. We had team bonding events, went out for ice cream to celebrate good grades, and had WCWS watch parties.

Were we tired of losing? Of course. But softball is a journey. You will not be the same person a year from now as you are today as long as you continue working hard and staying focused on the right things.

We prioritized bonding as a team. Developing the relationships among the team. Getting them to buy into the idea that the sky is big enough for many stars and understand the importance of "doing a job" for the team. And now? The bond on our team is unbreakable. Every single one of our players cheers loud for one another and feels genuine happiness when their teammates succeed. They are picking each other up in the dugout after a strikeout or error. They are up on the fence in crunch time down 5-2 in the finals in final innings lifting each other up and making sure everyone is staying focused. They are doing each other's eye black and hair before games and playing volleyball together during breaks.

You're going to go through ups and downs. Every team does. Building that bond so the team builds trust with one another and wants everyone to succeed helps create a winning environment.

Winning is a byproduct, not a goal.