I rarely post on here but I read the message boards at least weekly. I'm hoping to get some advice from the community here. Sorry if it gets a bit long
Background info:
My daughter is 11u playing on an 11u "Gold" team. This is her first year on this team. At the end of last summer, they saw her play at a tournament with her old team and asked her to come to try out for their team. She did and was excited to make it. It's a great team with good parents. We even guest played with them for a weekend before deciding to join. When she was offered they wanted her to be the 2nd catcher and play either 2B or 3B as well.
After joining the team we started fall practice and were getting ready for tournaments to start when the coaches announced they were adding a 12th player. They had originally said the only wanted 11, but this player was too good to pass up. Turns out she's a catcher and #4 hitter. Now we have 3 catchers and DD ends up third. Not a huge deal as she's also working at 2B.
Fall tournaments start and my daughter only catches 2 games out of probably 20. She splits time at 2B with 3 other girls. She did struggle hitting which impacted her playing time on tournament Sunday's. I get that. We told her she needed to work hard over the winter to get back into the lineup in the spring.
DD took private hitting all winter with a fantastic hitting coach. She had won a national championship with an 18u team and knew what she was doing. She took over 1200 swings a month on her own (thank Blast Motion) in addition to throwing/fielding all winter. 3 of the coaches on her team told me in the past few weeks how much better she's gotten hitting.
This past weekend we started our spring season with our first tournament. DD hit 11 out 12 in all 4 games and only played 3 innings in the field at 2B. None at catcher. She got a couple of hits and walked once. Getting on base 3 out of 5 plate appearances.
The worst part... she's totally beaten down about her team and softball. She thought she would hit the middle of the order and get to play 2B "most" of the time based on how she did at practice. She thinks her work was for nothing and the coaches don't like her.
The decision:
Do we stay or do we go? Most teams in our area don't play for another 4-6 weeks. Our team doesn't have another tournament for 3 weeks. I'm concerned if we leave we won't find another team or we'll be just jumping from one problem to another. My wife wants to pull her from this team before we spend all the time/money on travel to sit on the bench every weekend.
Our DD is torn and not sure what she wants to do. She likes being part of the team, but wants to play and is mad that she's not.
Background info:
My daughter is 11u playing on an 11u "Gold" team. This is her first year on this team. At the end of last summer, they saw her play at a tournament with her old team and asked her to come to try out for their team. She did and was excited to make it. It's a great team with good parents. We even guest played with them for a weekend before deciding to join. When she was offered they wanted her to be the 2nd catcher and play either 2B or 3B as well.
After joining the team we started fall practice and were getting ready for tournaments to start when the coaches announced they were adding a 12th player. They had originally said the only wanted 11, but this player was too good to pass up. Turns out she's a catcher and #4 hitter. Now we have 3 catchers and DD ends up third. Not a huge deal as she's also working at 2B.
Fall tournaments start and my daughter only catches 2 games out of probably 20. She splits time at 2B with 3 other girls. She did struggle hitting which impacted her playing time on tournament Sunday's. I get that. We told her she needed to work hard over the winter to get back into the lineup in the spring.
DD took private hitting all winter with a fantastic hitting coach. She had won a national championship with an 18u team and knew what she was doing. She took over 1200 swings a month on her own (thank Blast Motion) in addition to throwing/fielding all winter. 3 of the coaches on her team told me in the past few weeks how much better she's gotten hitting.
This past weekend we started our spring season with our first tournament. DD hit 11 out 12 in all 4 games and only played 3 innings in the field at 2B. None at catcher. She got a couple of hits and walked once. Getting on base 3 out of 5 plate appearances.
The worst part... she's totally beaten down about her team and softball. She thought she would hit the middle of the order and get to play 2B "most" of the time based on how she did at practice. She thinks her work was for nothing and the coaches don't like her.
The decision:
Do we stay or do we go? Most teams in our area don't play for another 4-6 weeks. Our team doesn't have another tournament for 3 weeks. I'm concerned if we leave we won't find another team or we'll be just jumping from one problem to another. My wife wants to pull her from this team before we spend all the time/money on travel to sit on the bench every weekend.
Our DD is torn and not sure what she wants to do. She likes being part of the team, but wants to play and is mad that she's not.
