imo seeing good/great pitching as early/often as possible is key. It's the one thing I'd have done different with my son....from 9-12 he played USSSA tournaments mostly against AA teams until he was 12, then we took our AA teams and competed with AAA and majors teams as often as we could. We didnt have the pitching to be a majors team at 12u, but we competed with them, lost mostly, won some and were competetive in most.