I think it has to do with toughness of the overall competition you play, and the fields you play on. My son's league (4A - the states largest) was a middle of the road 4A league. Had three strong teams, one OK, and one weak. Our team finished second in the regular season and won the conference tournament with the closest game being 6 runs. We only had two players over .400 while three other teams had 4 and five. The reasons; we played the toughest non conference schedule - maybe the toughest in the state, our coach would only let the varsity play 1-2 innings against a weak team - one game he played mostly our JV against another teams varsity; and our field is 330 down the line and 370 in center and plenty of foul area. Some of the other local fields are 300 down the line, 350 in center and no foul area. These all added up to lower averages for our team. In the end it made the players better and the team stronger as there were few "cheap" hits - but it may have cost us an all conference spot or two.