Editorial

The following is an editorial by the blogger:

The rain played havoc with our schedule this weekend. It is possible that the rain could do more than just shorten the tournament. We hope that isn't the case.

The rain has caused the cancellation of the Consolation rounds of the tournament, caused remaining pool play games in Open to be decided by PKs, caused the Round of 16 games in both Men's and Women's Championships to be decided by PKs and forced remaining bracket play games to be reduced to 25 minutes halves with 3 min halftimes.

The announced schedule is not ideal.  It is a decision not taken lightly by the NIRSA staff.  It was the best that could be offered with the situation at hand. The amount of rain caused the fields to become unplayable. The water seen caused puddles to form in sections of the middle of some fields while causing rivers to form near the touchlines.

There are 2 things to consider:

1. Safety of participants AND officials.  We will not jeopardize the safety of either in order to play the tournament. Playing on fields that are as saturated as the fields were today would have caused play to be erratic, unpredictable and unsafe.  The middle of the fields were soft and the touchlines filled with water.  We would not want injuries to occur for both players and officials due to the conditions.

2. The Reach 11 Field Complex.  They have other tournaments throughout the year and the relationship we have with them is outstanding.  We enjoyed playing in near perfect conditions from 2009-2011.  They enjoy having us.  But we are just one of their tournaments that they host.  If we damage multiple fields due to playing on wet fields, we risk losing this place as a host in the future.  We do not want that to happen.  The schedule was a compromise of both limiting the amount of fields we can use to minimize impact and trying our best to conduct a viable tournament.  We thank them for allowing this compromise to happen.  Without their cooperation and support from our gracious hosts, we may have had a total cancelation.

That being said...the rain could still force other decisions to be made.  Those decisions will be made in the morning.  In the meantime, we are hoping that we will be able to play and are planning as such to do so with the modified schedule.

It is not ideal.  Other solutions were considered and not viable.  I know most of you are frustrated.  Trust me when I say that we are all equally frustrated with you with this situation.  And all we can do is hope to make the best of it tomorrow.

Be safe and have a good night and I hope to have news for you tomorrow morning that we will be at the Reach 11 Complex for the conclusion of our tournament.