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for March 2001 |
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for March 2001 |
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Rich Wilson
The Chesapeake Challenge was conceived with three main purposes: (1) To provide every team with competition commensurate with their ability; (2) To allow teams, as they progress in ability, to maintain competitive play; and, (3) To shorten the playing day. Originally, the Challenge was to include every Juniors team in the Region in a series of Wave Play tournaments. This would shorten the playing day to a maximum of six hours and give each team from three to four matches (depending on Pool) in this time-frame. Court availability and organizational issues limited enrollment to 104 teams, 32—18 & unders, 48—16 & unders, and 24—14 & unders. At the start of the Seeding Tournaments, we had a total of 97 teams playing. The seeding tournaments started with the 16 & unders and the worst possible weather conditions (snow). Even though the 16’s tournaments were not cancelled, the variation in snowfall in the Region caused a number of teams to stay home resulting in problems seeding all 45 16 & under teams. The 14’s and 18’s did not experience these problems and were able to seed their first rounds according to final results. As of February 6, only the 16 & under age group had played a Wave Play round. In the two waves of the first round, this group completed 78 matches, of which 12 went to the third and deciding game (15%). All teams finished in the six-hour time limit. Of the 45 teams playing, only three went undefeated, and four were winless in spite of the seeding problems caused by the weather. Of the 78 matches played, only five matches were shortened to 21 or 15-point games to maintain the schedule. Much of the success in maintaining the schedule can be attributed to the Referees and Work Teams being ready to start the next match, and the Tournament Directors making sure that on-time starts were the norm rather than the exception. While there have been complaints about seeding and shortened play (15 or 21 point games), overall, the comments from parents, players and coaches have been favorable. Most like the shortened play day, sleeping in (for those playing in the afternoon wave), and the set schedule of play dates. The majority of Junior Club Directors, as a one-year trial, endorsed the Chesapeake Challenge in its present format. At the end of the season, the Club Directors will review the operation of the Challenge and decide whether to implement it on a yearly basis and what changes to make in format. Your feedback is vitally important in this decision. Please forward any comments to rich.wilson@chrva.org or your Club Director. Special thanks goes to Joe Spellman for his organization of the Challenge and Skip Slawson for his critical input. Also, thanks to Joe for the statistics presented above. ---Rich Wilson
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