My daughter plays in this age group in Maryland and is on age - born after 9/1/02 - as are nearly all of her teammates. There are a handful of girls with summer birthdays on the team. In Maryland, the practice of repeating 8th grade is rampant on the boy's side (will be interesting to see if it continues after the rule change) but is all but non-existent on the girl's side. I don't consider a girl or boy a holdback if they did a pre-first year due to a summer birthday. This topic was all the rage when my 2018 son was a rising freshman and then it was never mentioned again.
That's the thing , you would not consider a summer birthday a holdback but it is. On Long Island that summer birthday would put them in the middle of the age range( not older end not younger end) but a year younger than your non Maryland holdback. Ask your directors why they stopped putting in teams to the age based national championship, they just could not compete on age. The SW parents have a legitimate claim to being the best 2021 team in the country but the winner this weekend can claim they are unarguably the best U14 team in the country.
No, just the best U14 team that showed up for this particular tournament that added "national championship" to its title. (And not sure "unarguably" is even a word.)
