I rarely post on these things, but I would agree with Mike, it is too hard to figure which are 9U and which are 10U, many organizations have odd/even teams and when I looked into possibly doing it, I found that usually rosters are not pure in age group. Then it becomes, what percentage of 9 year olds does to remain an odd year team. Even spoke with some coaches on it and especially for smaller organizations it does not work as there is no guidelines which please everyone.
We will do Gold/Silver at some of our tournaments in the younger ages. Nothing is worse than being the low seeded team which comes at 8am and then gets beat-up. We put the winners of the first round games into the Gold Division and they play for 1st and finalist. Note, we use the high to low seeding in first round.
The losers of first round, go into Silver Division and they then play for 1st & Finalist. Gives the better teams more games against each other and the newer or younger teams a chance to win and play competitive in games on Sunday. I give awards in each division and explain, we split into two tournaments for Sunday.
This way everyone gets a minimum of five games, not one has the dreaded 9:30am Sunday ride home after losing 8am games. I can tell it is very popular with the players, most coaches and many times parents thank us. The only draw back is the cost of a few more awards and games, but when you hand out the awards to teams who truly made the effort and got to be in more than an elimination game on Sunday, it is a no brainer and money is not what it is about.
I know baseball often does only the top X % make the finals from Pool Play and others may get consolations or "silver" division. I have thought about, doing that at one tournament, but as Pool Seeding is not a science, I will continue to go with this format. We will do this 12U as well sometimes.
It is funny sometimes. I recall a conversation with a parent who wanted to know how "double elimination worked. I explained what we were doing and why. The response was "that's stupid." Always willing to listen, I asked why she felt that way. Her response was because I don't understand it! At that point, I gave up the discussion.
Hope everyone has a good season!