It does seem like the experience can vary from age to age.
I guess my question is...organizationally how this can happen and why would it be allowed to continue?
Does anyone ever sit down and do best practices, lessons learned, benchmark other states, etc?
This is a process....if you want a certain outcome then you need to do what is necessary to produce the outcome. Training and playing together as a unit helps to build that and the lack of it......hurts the individual player's ability to play to the best of his/her ability.
My sons comparable age group in NC played 2 subregionals, not one. They practiced at least once a month from December on. They paid $10 per player per session to help cover training costs.
NC in this age group put about 7 kids in pool play last night and we had 1. Coincidence?
