I guess i would have to ask, as middle school ball is not big at all where we live, why? Is this a case where there is only 3 other teams playing in their small league, and being such a new sport to middle school, maybe the teams are so bad that it just does not help the middle school players to play just yet, to the point of loosing out on travel practices and early tournaments..
My DD plays for her middle school but it is CYO so the travel teams are not affected, but CYO has been playing fastpitch for the last 9yrs and it is still horrible. We use it more of a practice than anything, but if she was not allowed to have travel ball team contact than we would not waste her time or ours in playing CYO, because it is that bad.