Ok for new 12u pitcher to pitch in 14u tournament?

djcarter1966 said:

Assuming this is a true 2nd yr 14U team that will all be playing 14U next year? and not a team I referenced in my previous post ...but yeah that would mean 11 and 12 year olds against 14 yr olds and for the most part one team has all grown up and the other has not so it could get ugly...of course it all depends on quality but all things being equal the good 14U team will make life pretty rough for a good 12U unless of course the 12U team as a stud in the circle.

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This is a team that was first year 14U this past season and will be second year in 2017. Mostly 2020s with a few 21s.

DD went from a 12U B team to a 14U A team. The biggest difference is ANY.. and I mean ANY mistake pitch will get hit hard. DD learned that walks are okay and preferred over trying to overpower a good hitter and try to jam one in. At 12u a power pitcher can K 1/3 of the lineup if she's in the low 50's with movement or not. At 14u strike outs will go down and she must learn to live on the corners. I watched the video of all 3 games our team played last Saturday. Our team had 39 hits. 29 of them came on what I would call mistake pitches. Balls that caught too much of the plate. It sounds obvious but when I looked at DD's video from 12u she was able to take many more chances in the red zone without paying for it. At 14u every girl can hit a mistake pitch. During your last pitching practice before games have her hit nothing but corners.
Another tip is to abandon the FB outside on Righties and just throw straight curves, when facing lefties go straight screw. A lot will change when the rise gets good enough to move as it needs to.

Pitching against older, bigger, stronger, faster players can help show a pitcher what she needs to work on. She will not be able to blow a fastball by them, so she needs to be able to change speeds and hit her spots. Stay ahead in the count so she does not have to throw any "meatballs". If she wears a mask, make sure she has it on, if she doesn't wear a mask, now may be a good time to start!