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Post by vblover on Apr 1, 2013 8:16:22 GMT -5
For those who may not know, the CR has a meeting every year that is open to all CR junior club coaches, directors and reps. Each team gets one vote on each topic voted upon. The discussions include next season's schedule, tournament formats, etc.
With all the changes in the past couple years, I am sure there will be much discussion regarding the tournament formats across the board at all levels of CR jr play. I thought we could get the ball rolling with some PRODUCTIVE conversations toward next season. Reminder: bashing and complaining will not get us anywhere.
Since not all coaches, directors and reps are available to attend the Junior Advisory Board meeting in May, I thought some ideas could be bounced around on here that might create some good discussions/ideas that could be brought up for the meeting in May. (I know there are some good thoughts that have been brought up on the Open format thread previously, but they were mixed in with general complaints, etc. Let's keep this conversation collectively productive. Moderator, feel free to knock off anything you deem as counter-productive.)
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Post by volleynerd on Apr 1, 2013 8:29:36 GMT -5
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Post by spiker on Apr 8, 2013 10:43:51 GMT -5
If the East/West sub-division is retained, suggest moving the demarcation line further west as there seemed to be more teams in the West than the East. Also, in several cases Eastern teams played in the Western division tournaments as they sought out new teams to play and/or more competitive teams to play.
The East/West split ultimately reduced the parity in this year's tournaments, but I guess it's either that or drive all over the state and having to pay to stay in hotels.
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Post by rtpvolleyparent on Apr 9, 2013 9:03:30 GMT -5
This was my last year of Carolina Region VB but I have been a club parent for nine years and these are my thoughts:
1. Retain the East/West Region division. This cuts down on costs and travel time. I do agree the line should be moved to Greensboro and teams in that area should be able to choose East or West. 2. If the Open classification is retained limit it to one team per age group per club (I won't go into it but this will basically keep some 2s teams from get the short end of the deal) 3. Have one division for Open which includes 16-18s. If 8 team pods are doable then use those, if not use 6 team pods (using the schedule I posted a while back somewhere which basically had six teams playing on one court which teams playing or reffing every other match). Not really sure how to provide more diversity in the teams in each pod but I'm sure there is some way to do it. 4. Keep the rule that teams in Open play all the tournaments and enforce it. Not naming names but there is a certain club in this area that seems to be able to make their own rules and there is a lot of resentment due to the perception that they can do whatever they want with no repercussions. 5. Schedule all Open tournaments in a central location and if possible have all of the tournaments at the same location 6. For Club it would be great if each division could be set up in multiples of 6 teams using the 6 team pool schedule I discussed earlier. There was a whole discussion about this earlier this year and this would allow 18 teams on 3 courts and no questions about who plays when and there would be a clear playoff in the end and play would still end around 7.
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Ivy
VolleyTot
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Post by Ivy on Apr 18, 2013 10:11:12 GMT -5
Some good points above. Comments:
The East/West division did work for those of us in the RTP area. Much less driving and NO overnight hotel stays! Moving the line west to Greensboro seems reasonable.
True, several clubs had their #2 teams playing in Open division when that team did not compete appropriate to that level; conversely there were several that were quite competitive. It is up to the region administrators to decide which teams are admitted to this division, yes? If so, it appears there needs to be some tweaking (and backbone from region) on that going forward. If left up the the club, lesser teams may be pushed into the Open division to pad stats and tell next season's prospective recruits/parent: "our 2 top teams in this age division competed and played in the Open division" without stating records and results. I believe a team should be allowed to "qualify" for the Open division, but only accepted if truly competitive.
Limiting Open division to only 16-18 hinders the 15 age group, which is the freshman HS level, and a large majority of those girls are on the varsity HS team. I would think the region would need to include this age group for that reason. This year saw a 15 Open team shoot up the rank/POD. Very competitive teams from different clubs in this age group.
I heartily agree with point #4. If you are accepted to play in the Open division, you should be expected to play the matches. If not, there should be some type of repercussion - maybe affecting their seeding at the next tournament. Not even sure if that would be workable. But, if they don't play, that could be considered a forfeit and result in that team being a "bottom" finisher - thus moving that team down a POD??
I would also add that in the Open division, teams should be able to move up or down PODs based on performance and not limited by age group. So a 15 could progress up to POD 2 and play against 18/17 if competitive. Conversely, an 18/17 team could fall into a POD 3 and play against 15/16s. Initial reading of Open guidelines suggested this. Yet that seemed to be walked back as the season progressed.
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Post by raleighparent on Apr 24, 2013 8:19:51 GMT -5
My main comment on this would be related to the east/west split at the lower age groups that are not part of the Open division. I think that the region should consider re-forming a Platinum division at the lower age groups that would be state wide. The split between east and west caused the level of play in the Platinum division to decline, especially in the East I think, and this caused there to be a much higher level of variability in the skill levels of the teams in Platinum than in previous years.
Many of the top teams in Platinum at the lower age groups (12-14) are National or at least Regional Plus type teams, and they are seeking a high level of play in the region to prepare them for the larger tournaments that they will play (be it tournaments like MCC, CHC, or Big South and AAUs). It may be that they would "value" the better quality of play in a combined East/West Platinum division and the additional cost of having to "travel" for a couple tournaments would not be a huge concern.
From my experience with the 13 Platinum division this year it appeared that there were about 5 "top" teams in the East and the remaining 5 or so teams were not really at the same level of play. This can be painful for both sides of that equation, since the top teams do not get any better when playing "easy" opponents, and the lower teams can become discouraged when constantly being beaten badly by the top teams. I saw several teams move up into Platinum in the East division after being quite successful in Gold, only to be constantly at the bottom of Platinum. When the divisions were state wide there was a more gradual drop off in the level of play of the teams since there were more clubs participating in the single Platinum division.
I don't know what others think about this, but it seems that the top division in the region should be state wide. If a team really doesn't want to have to worry about travel then they could remain in Gold which would continue to be east/west split.
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Post by spiker on Apr 24, 2013 13:00:43 GMT -5
Having a state-wide Platinum division at the lower age groups is a great idea.
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