Tryouts

Similar situation with my 2017.  Though he was told up front that the odds of him making the V team were long as they planned to roll a kid into his position who batted .522 last season and is headed to a major D1 school to play football.  They knew he was on the Soph tea without question so they let him tryout with V instead of wasting his time sitting around during the Soph tryouts.  V/JV teams are the same team in our area.  The kids who don't play in the V game play in the JV game.  

When they told him he was going to stay with the Soph team the coach explained to him that they would rather have him down there playing instead of sitting on the bench during the V game waiting to get in.  He didn't feel JV was the best option as they have a lot less games then V or Soph's and they rotate everyone into those games so playing time is limited. My son is hoping for a playoff run call up.

My 2016 was in same boat freshman year. Made it all the way to final cuts for varsity. They sent him down to JV, asked him to play a position that he had only done sparingly (catcher) previous and he caught every inning of JV that season, never complaining and doing a great job (as coaches testified).

Skip to soph year and he split time and starts at 1B on varsity with Sr. Captain.

Now in Jr. year and he's one of coach's go-to players...his demeanor this spring is like night and day to when he was slugging it out to make varsity. 

And as I told him, that year on JV was probably the best thing that could have happened, especially how he handled it. 

Good luck.