Check out my post on my team from this past summer (IOMT Castaways) in the Ken's Softball Tips forum or on my blog. The team was selected specifically to avoid the types of issues you talk about. I knew every single kid on the team from before and set out what the goals of the team were before they even agreed to play. I only invited kids I thought would be on board with what we wanted to do.
I had a roster of 12, and never had to use a guest player except for one practice game in the beginning of the season. Sometimes we only had 9 girls, and one of those times we had to put a kid who was sick on the field, but most of the time we either had a full roster or only one missing.
It's entirely about character, which is something you can't see during tryouts. If you don't know the players ahead of time there's no way to predict how they will act, especially graduated seniors. How well did you know your 12 before putting the team together? Not saying there's a fault here, but if you want to avoid being in that frustrating situation again try to hand-pick girls you know want to play.
I had a roster of 12, and never had to use a guest player except for one practice game in the beginning of the season. Sometimes we only had 9 girls, and one of those times we had to put a kid who was sick on the field, but most of the time we either had a full roster or only one missing.
It's entirely about character, which is something you can't see during tryouts. If you don't know the players ahead of time there's no way to predict how they will act, especially graduated seniors. How well did you know your 12 before putting the team together? Not saying there's a fault here, but if you want to avoid being in that frustrating situation again try to hand-pick girls you know want to play.