TRAVEL BALL

12U Travel Baseball in Bend and Central Oregon: Clubs and Links

Six Central Oregon clubs put a 12U team on the field in 2026, and each one publishes its own roster, fee and tryout details — this page points you at the right channel for every club, plus the 12U age rules and the 85-pitch workload band.

Updated August 5, 2026

Which Central Oregon clubs field a 12U team?

Six clubs in the region put a 12U team on a field during the 2026 season: Junior Ravens in Redmond, Caldera Jr. Wolfpack in Bend, Jr Cougs in Bend, Bend Black Sox in Bend, 4-6-3 Double Play in Bend, and the Junior Cowboys out of Prineville. Central Oregon Crush advertises 12U as part of its age range but did not show a 12U team at either 2026 local event, so that one is a question to ask rather than an option to count on.

That list is shorter than a general roundup of area clubs, and deliberately so. The two 2026 tournaments run through Central Oregon Baseball — the Rock Chuck Classic on May 2–3 and the Battle at the Hub on June 13–14 — are the clearest public record of which clubs actually put a team on the field at each age. BOSS Baseball and SunWest Baseball are genuinely active at other ages but showed no 12U team in 2026, so they are left out below rather than listed with an empty column. Premier Baseball Oregon is the one addition on forward-looking grounds: it also fielded no 12U team in 2026, but its 2027 tryout announcement covers 10U through 14U, which puts 12U on the table for next spring.

Two of the six won their bracket at 12U in 2026: Caldera Jr. Wolfpack took the 12u Gold at the Rock Chuck Classic, and Bend Black Sox won the 12u division at Battle at the Hub. That is one spring, not a ranking — a club that was quiet at this age in 2026 can be the right fit next year.

The 12U club directory

Every club below carries its own current roster, fee schedule and tryout information on its own pages. That is where the page should send you. Fees change, coaches change, and tournament schedules get set late, so the club’s channel is the only reliable place to confirm what a 12U season with them actually looks like.

Club	City	Website	Facebook	Instagram
Junior Ravens	Redmond	juniorravens.com	/juniorravensbaseball · 2026 12U team page	none published
Caldera Jr. Wolfpack	Bend	jrwolfpackbaseball.godaddysites.com	/jrwolfpackbaseball	@calderajrwolfpack
Jr Cougs	Bend	cougsbaseball.com/jrcougs	Jr Cougs Baseball	none published
Bend Black Sox	Bend	no working website	none published	@bendblacksox
4-6-3 Double Play (Moment Athletics)	Bend	momentathleticsbend.com	/momentathletics	@momentathletics
Premier Baseball Oregon	Bend	premierbaseballoregon.com	Premier Baseball Oregon	@premierbaseballor
Junior Cowboys	Prineville	not verified	a Junior Cowboys Baseball page surfaces in search	none published
Central Oregon Crush	Bend	centraloregoncrush.com	/centraloregoncrush	@co_crush_official

A few details worth knowing before you start clicking. Junior Ravens serves 8U to 14U in baseball and softball, runs an indoor facility with turf and a classroom at 1910 S Hwy 97 in Redmond, and keeps a separate Facebook page for its 12U team that is often more current than the main one. Jr Cougs is the Mountain View High School feeder and builds a team per grade, so its 12U is the 6th-grade team; indoor practices start in January, tournaments run March through June, and Matt Gylling takes questions at gyllingm@gmail.com. Caldera Jr. Wolfpack feeds Caldera High School and was the region’s most consistently active multi-age club in 2026, entering 10u through 14u at both local events; its roster pages are posted as images, so the 12U details are easy to scroll past. 4-6-3 Double Play is a Moment Athletics program for kids age 10 to 13, run by professional educators, with exactly two teams — 12U and 13U — and CJ Colt as the contact at calebcolt@gmail.com; neither team appeared in the 2026 local tournaments, so ask where they play. For the Junior Cowboys, the Prineville club’s own site could not be confirmed and the Facebook page that turns up in search is not verified as official, so word of mouth in Prineville is the better starting point.

Bend Black Sox: a competitive club reachable only on Instagram

Bend Black Sox is the practical oddity at this age, and it is worth explaining plainly. This is a real, active club that won the 12u division at Battle at the Hub in June 2026. It also has no working website and no Facebook page. Its Instagram account is the only channel it publishes.

For a parent, that means the path to a conversation is a direct message on Instagram. There is no registration portal, no fee page to compare, no published tryout notice. If your family wants everything in writing before committing, this club is harder to evaluate than the others — not because it is disorganized on the field, but because its front door is a social account.

Two things follow. Do not read the missing website as a missing team — the tournament results say otherwise. And if the club interests you, message early: one volunteer-run channel moves slower than an inbox with a registration form behind it, and 12U rosters here fill during the late-summer window.

What about Central Oregon Crush at 12U?

Crush states on its own site that it hosts teams for ages 9U through 14U for the 2026 baseball season. Its demonstrated 2026 footprint at the two local tournaments was 9U and 10U. A 12U team is claimed, in other words, but was not visible in play last spring.

That has now changed for the coming season. Crush’s 2027 tryout announcement lists 11U, 12U and 13U together on September 13 at Pine Nursery Fields — so a 12U team is on the schedule even though one was not visible in 2026 play. One caution when browsing: the roster page on the Crush site is still headed “2024 BASEBALL TEAM ROSTER,” so use the announcement rather than the site for current detail.

Have any clubs posted 2027 tryout dates?

Three have, and the BOSS entry comes with a catch worth reading carefully.

Club	12U tryout for 2027	Where
Premier Baseball Oregon	Saturday, August 29, 9:30 a.m. (10U–14U)	Bend Elks Fieldhouse
BOSS Baseball — 12U Black	Thursday, September 10, 6:30–8:30 p.m.	Vince Genna Stadium
BOSS Baseball — 12U Blue	No tryout; team and coaching staff return for 2027	—
Central Oregon Crush	Sunday, September 13 (11U, 12U and 13U)	Pine Nursery Fields

Premier’s tryout covers ages 10U through 14U, which includes 12U; sign-up runs through the link on its Instagram announcement. BOSS runs two 12U teams for 2027 and only one of them is open: 12U Black holds a tryout on the evening of September 10, while 12U Blue returns with its coaching staff and will not hold one. That is the practical difference between a club with a returning core and a club building a roster, and it is visible here in a single program. Registration for the BOSS tryout is at bossbaseballperformance.com, with questions to info@boss-baseball.com.

The others have not posted 12U dates. Junior Ravens has a “’27 Registration” menu on its site with no programs attached yet. Jr Cougs has a live 2027 registration form with no date or location on it. Caldera has not posted a 2027 tryout, and Crush’s form is still the 2025 one. Elsewhere on the local calendar, Jr Cougs, Caldera and FCA Bend Saints have all announced September 12 tryouts at 10U, which is a fair signal of when the 12U dates will surface.

Historically, these dates land in a burst from late August into September. Junior Ravens has typically held tryouts in late August at Ridgeview High School. The practical move is to pick the two or three clubs you would seriously consider, follow their channel from the directory above, and check it weekly through that window. The Central Oregon travel tryout guide walks through what the late-summer process usually looks like and what to bring.

2027 USSSA age eligibility for 12U

The rule most parents get wrong is that USSSA uses a dual cutoff with a grade exception, not a single birthday. Applied to 12U, the pattern from the 2026 USSSA National By-Laws reads: a player who turns 13 before May 1 of the current season is not eligible unless that player is in the 6th grade, and any player turning 14 before August 1 is not eligible regardless of grade.

For a player on the standard grade track, the 2027 season 12U birth cutoff is on or after May 1, 2014. The grade pairing runs 9U with 3rd grade, 10U with 4th, 11U with 5th, 12U with 6th, 13U with 7th and 14U with 8th — exactly how Jr Cougs organizes its teams. USSSA’s age calculator resolves individual cases faster than reading the by-laws.

One more rule matters for a player on the edge: you may always play up an age group, never down. If your child is 12U-eligible but would be better served against older competition, that door is open. The reverse is not.

Why Little League may call your 12-year-old a different age

Little League does not use the USSSA date. It uses a player’s actual age on August 31, published on the determine league age page. The result is that the same child can be one “age” in Little League and another in USSSA travel, which is a common source of confusion when a family is running both in the same year.

The 2026 Little League chart is out; the 2027 chart has not been released yet. If you are trying to line up a 12U travel season with a Little League season, check the age chart against the USSSA calculator for your child’s specific birthday rather than assuming they match. Our Little League age chart guide covers the Little League side, and the Little League versus travel comparison covers what it looks like to do both.

Pitching limits that apply at 11–12

At 12U your player sits in the 11–12 band of the MLB Pitch Smart guidelines, which is the operative standard for daily volume and required rest. The daily maximum is 85 pitches, with rest scaling by how many pitches were actually thrown.

Pitches thrown in a day	Required days of rest
1–20	0
21–35	1
36–50	2
51–65	3
66–85	4

The line every travel parent should read is Pitch Smart’s own: “It is the responsibility of the parent and the athlete to ensure that the player follows the guidelines for the respective age group over the course of a year – given that the player will oftentimes play in multiple leagues.” Counts follow the child, not the roster. A tournament coach sees that weekend’s pitches; nobody but you sees the Little League start on Tuesday and the bullpen work at a lesson. Keep the count yourself and give every coach the same number.

The year-round numbers that matter more than any single weekend

Daily limits are the easy part. The harder constraints are annual, and they come from the American Sports Medicine Institute’s position statement for adolescent pitchers. Three of its lines apply directly to a 12U travel season.

The first is the ceiling: “Do not pitch more than 100 innings in games in any calendar year.” That is a full-year figure across every team, and at 12U it is genuinely reachable if a player pitches for a travel club and a Little League team in the same spring. The second is rest: “No overhead throwing of any kind for at least 2-3 months per year (4 months is preferred). No competitive baseball pitching for at least 4 months per year.” AOSSM’s STOP Sports Injuries baseball page puts the same idea as “Take active rest of at least 3 months each year,” and notes that following pitch recommendations “may reduce the incidence of overuse injuries by 50%.”

The third is the one that surprises people: “A pitcher should not also be a catcher for his team.” At 12U the athletic kid who can catch is usually the same kid who can pitch, and combining the two adds throwing load that neither pitch count nor innings count captures. ASMI also advises against pitching on multiple teams with overlapping seasons and against radar guns at this age.

Know the stop signs. ASMI lists fatigue as decreased ball velocity, decreased accuracy, an upright trunk during pitching, a dropped elbow, or more time between pitches. The AAOS guidance on throwing injuries in the elbow in children lists the red flags that end an outing immediately: elbow pain or swelling, especially with lost velocity, feeling a “pop,” numbness or tingling, restricted range of motion, or locking. A youth player should never throw through pain.

Treating 12U as a transition year

For most players, 12U is the last season before moving to a bigger diamond. What that transition looks like depends on the sanctioning body and the specific event, so ask each club and each tournament rather than assuming a single local standard. The USSSA by-laws govern USSSA events, and the club you join will know which rule set its schedule runs under.

What that framing should change is how you weigh a 12U offer. A season spent almost entirely on tournament results is thin preparation for a jump in field size, throwing distance and pace. A season with real practice volume — footwork, arm care, baserunning reads — travels better into the next level. USA Baseball’s Long-Term Athlete Development plan makes the point structurally: it criticizes “the disproportionate ratio between development and competition,” targets early single-sport specialization and year-round play, and does not begin its Advanced Track until ages 14 to 16.

Specialization is the same story. The American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report on sports specialization and intensive training in young athletes supports postponing single-sport commitment, so a 12U player who also plays a winter sport is not falling behind. The Central Oregon travel baseball cost guide shows what a year of full commitment actually costs before you decide it is required.

What to ask before you accept a 12U spot

Keep it short. Five questions cover most of what a family needs, and the club should answer each one rather than leaving you to infer it.

How many tournament weekends, and how many involve an overnight stay?
What is the all-in cost, including uniforms, travel and any required fundraising?
Who is coaching this specific team, and how often does the team practice between March and June?
How does the coach handle pitch counts and rest when a player is also on a Little League roster?
If my player catches, how will the throwing load be managed across the season?

Then confirm the details on the club’s own channel from the directory above. Fees, times and fields change late in this region, and the club page is where the change shows up first.