girls fastpitch softball pitching rules

Question
i am a coach of my daughters softball team in our city league 12 yr olds. She has been in pitching lessons for 2 months now. she has pitched several games for us without any problem until last week. the umpire said she is illegal pitching. she starts with her hands together, while keeping them together she raises them to her head and seperates them, bringing her glove hand down to her leg and the ball hand down and around for the release. the umpire says that she cant seperate at the top its illegal. please help, because her pitching coach says they have taught this for many years this way and some of our top pitchers in our state was taught this way and still pitches this way. our city league plays by ASA rules as does our school teams, the umpire says its legal in school ball so what is the difference because this is really confusing my daughter because she also plays school ball and wants to pitch but we have been told so many different things.

Thanks  

Answer
Hi Tracy,

   Hi Lynne,

These are the basics for female fp

both feet on the plate, the shoulders in line with 1st and 3rd.

a signal must be taken while in contact w/ the plate
the ball must be in either the glove or pitching hand (hands separated)it may be in front of or behind the body.

after taking the signal and bringing both hands together for 1-10 secs the pitcher may begin their motion once the hands are brought together...no rocking motions which pull the pivot foot off the plate are allowed

the start of the pitch begins when the pitcher takes 1 hand off the ball

a pitcher may drop the arm to the side and the rear before starting the windmill motion.

The delivery may not be 2 full revolutions.  The deliverly must be an underhanded motion with the hand below the hip and the wrist not farther from the body than the elbow.

As long as she is taking the signal w/ her hands seperated and then bringing them together to start her motion and she's not rocking pulling her foot off the plate I see no problem based on your description.

Mark