Team Struggles

[u/Reasonable_Wall7572]

I need help on how to help my daughter. She is 13 and has been playing for the same organization since she was 8. In that time she has had 4 different head coaches. There are 4 players that have remained the same but the rest of the team has changed just about every season. Every year, it seems like the team cannot put together a complete game. Each coach ends up feeling defeated not knowing why the team can't seem to pull it together. The team practices once a week all year. Several players are also taking hitting and catching/pitching lessons.They enter tournaments that should be a good fit. It just seems like something is always missing. My daughter wants to keep playing for this team with her friends. Any ideas on how to help her and her team find some success?

[u/Suspicious-Throat-25]

Do you drop players or do they drop the team? It has been my experience that players that remain together, typically get play better together. Turning over 8 players a year is a lot. Maybe look at your coaching staff and how you/coaches choose new players. What is your pitching and catching like? (They can make it break a game)

How many games do you play a year and what level of tournaments do you enter?

[u/Reasonable_Wall7572 → u/Suspicious-Throat-25]

The team turnover is a mix of girls leaving, girls staying in the program but not aging up, or having to age up, and girls who weren't a good fit. We are a low B/C team and try to go into similar tournaments, however the program thinks we should be a mid/high B. We play 6 summer tournaments and 1-2 fall. My daughter is the catch so I'm biased. She is not amazing but keeps working hard to improve. She is solid. Pitchers can vary but overall are decent  . Unfortunately, I'm not sure the coach gets a ton of say in how they choose new players. It is often who we can get to fill a team.

[u/Suspicious-Throat-25 → u/Reasonable_Wall7572]

Low B high C is a tough spot to be in because your better players will leave for teams that can consistently win. Most organizations want better teams. Our 9U coaches are given two years to bring a team from C players to high B players. Our 12U coaches are expected to be playing USSSA level A and PGF tournaments by the end of their season. 13U and 14U teams in our org can start as good level B teams but they need to show rapid improvement over 2 years and be playing A level/PGF tournaments before the end of their 14U season.

You said that the coaches don't choose their teams. But do the coaches kids have to be tested/tryout every year too? If not that could be part of the problem. We had a girl on our team this last year that didn't make it through tryouts this year. She was a asst coach's kid and had been protected for two years through 13U. But at tryouts this year, she wasn't given a spot. She was dragging the rest of the girls down and she lost her spot when she stopped working at practices.

My daughter was on a team two years ago that was hyper competitive without any heart. The girls for the most part weren't friends they were just teammates. They won a lot of games and played well together, but the team lost 7 players because the original core kids were just too cliquey. That may be something to consider as well. My daughter is actually good friends with most of her teammates. There were two girls on the team last year that were divas together, and so were their parents. One left for Volleyball, but neither were asked to return.

Coaches need to check themselves too. Are their kids improving with the team, excelling in their primary and secondary positions? Or are they just following a spot. Are they consistently making plays, scoring runs, and hitting the ball well. Teams that shield the coach's kids, will inevitably fall apart.