We had our 16u girls show up for the 10u and 12u tryouts to help the young ladies and answer any questions they may have. After that was over, most of them left before the 14u and 16u tryouts started. The ones that stayed to my knowledge didn't have rides home.
My opinion about this whole post is this: At our age (16u), you try to put your best team together. Loyalty certainly is a factor, but so is putting great talent on the field -- talent that may help our daughters get recognized at college showcases, etc. In my opinion, college scouts would love to watch a team play that's solid from top to bottom. I had two returning parents come up to me yesterday at our tryout and ask about why certain girls were at our tryout. By the way, these certain girls are extremely good ball players and at positions that would solidify certain weaknesses in our lineup and depth chart. Anyway, these two parents (independent of each other) said you'd be crazy not to take those girls. Easier said than done. We do have loyalty, but there is also loyalty to the rest of our team to surround them with exceptional talent that would help the whole team? By the way, I'm not suggesting that we replace our "7th thru 9th" starters, but explain to them that playing time can now be an issue. Trust me, I lost sleep over this whole thing. Managers, any advice?