In 2004, Edge Fastpitch, pardon the pun, edged out the Rounders for the So Cal ASA Alliance title by a single point. Hard to imagine it could be any closer in 2005, but it was.
Primetime Fastpitch (with a few players from last year’s Edge team) nosed out the Amigos for the Alliance crown on a “runs allowed” formula, after the two teams wound up in a dead heat after the seventh and final tournament of the year at Santa Fe Springs. The Amigos lost a heartbreaker, 14-13 to the Long Beach Black Sox in extra innings, which proved to be the difference.
The Long Beach Black Sox captured their third Alliance tournament title of the year in the final weekend, ahead of the Rounders, whom they beat in the title game.
The Rounders held third place for most of the season, but were excluded from tournament #6 July 10-11 by virtue of having captured an ASA “C” Nationals berth in Stockton over Memorial Day, earning zero (0) points, while everyone else moved up. Comments invited on this rule below.
Fred Hanker’s Black Sox squad was the only team to win more than one Alliance tournament during the season, falling just short of the four won by the Rounders in 2004, and five won by the Kanakas (former name for Edge), in 2003.
For more details and the final standings, visit the So Cal ASA website.
The Alliance will send at least six (6) teams to the ASA “C” Nationals in Stockton over the Labor day Weekend, September 1-5, 2005. Three of the six captured berths for the ASA “C” in qualifiers, the Rounders (Stockton in May), and Rude Pac and RAW (Santa Fe Springs), while the other three earned berths for their finish in the standings, champions Primetime, runnerup Amigos, and the third place Long Beach Black Sox.
One more door remains open to teams trying to get into the big event, a regional qualifier in Lancaster August 6-7, 2005. No word yet which teams are headed to that one.
Click Comments link below to read comments on the rule banning teams from playing in a tournament while awarding points to their competition below, or to post your own comment. Simple one-time registration required to post comments.
Three comments so far — tell us what you think. Click “comments” link below.
Regarding the rule that excludes a team from competing in a tournament while all other teams move up in the standings based on the results of that same tournament, I sugggest that it’s a rule in need of review.
I preface my remarks by saying that I am a fan of the format used by the So Cal ASA Alliance to determine its champion. For those not familiar with the format, the league holds eight tournaments a year, with round robin play on Saturday and single elimination on Sunday. Teams are awarded one point for each Saturday wins, which also determines seeding for Sunday, and additional points based on your finish in the Sunday single elimination bracket.
For example, if there were 10 teams for a particular tournament, the winner gets 10 points, the second place team 9 points, and so forth. So a team that wins all three of its games on Saturday and wins a 10 team tournament would get 13 points on the weekend. Points are tallied all year long to determine an overall Alliance champion, but each tournament stands on its own, keeping it interesting, even for teams ranked lower in the standings. Finally, the Alliance awards travel money to the winner and berths to the ASA “C” Nationals to the top three teams. All good.
Oh, there is a quirk or two, e.g. the possibility that that the team finishing second in a tournament can get more points than the winner, but all in all, a format that the teams and its players enjoy, and keeps the level of play up all year long. The past two years, the league title was decided on the final day of the season, by a single point — or less. Pretty great stuff.
That being said, there is one league rule which should be revisited before it costs someone the league title – a rule which penalizes teams in the hunt for the Alliance crown by banning them from playing in one of the league’s tournaments, while all of their competition plays and racks up points.
The rule is that teams that win a National tournament berth over Memorial Day are banned from competing in the Alliance’s Association Tournament in July.
The annual Association tournament gives berths to the top two teams — but also awards points in the standings to the competing teams — while one of its league teams is forced to sit out and watch the competition go sailing by in the standings.
There is, of course, one valid reason for the rule — to prevent a team that has already qualified for the National tournament from eliminating another team trying to win one of the top two spots in the annual Association Tournament. No problem there.
Am I suggesting that teams that win a Nationals berth in the Memorial Day qualifier be permitted to play in the Association tournament which gives out two more berths? No.
But I am asking if it’s fair to ban one team from a league tournament, and then award points to everyone else.
Why not just have the Association Tournament stand on its own, and skip the points for that one weekend. Why skew the standings when you are excluding teams from competing in the event?
Those who compete in the Alliance know that a “one and done” Sunday (losing your first game on a Sunday morning) can be devastating to your chances to win the league. The Black Sox had it happen this year, and despite winning three of the seven tournaments (more than anyone else), didn’t challenge for the league title. But even so, a bad Sunday is one thing, but to skip one of the tournaments altogether? Forget about it. No way to win the league. (Incentive to keep the teams coming back, of course).
Some might suggest that it’s only an issue because the team I play on, the Rounders were affected by the rule this year. Of course that brought the impact of the rule home. But the impact on us was fairly minimal, putting us in fourth place behind the Black Sox instead of battling them for third. No big deal there. They won three Alliance tournaments this year, while we won none. They beat us in the final game and tournament of the season. ‘Nuff said there. But what if the rule winds up deciding the league champion, instead of games played on the field? What if it was the top two teams this year, Primetime or the Amigos, that had clinched a Nationals berth, in the thick of their close race for the Alliance title?
Is it a good rule that penalizes a team in this fashion? IMHO, it is not.
What do you think?
Another reader adds his comments:
Fred Hanker weighs in on this issue and a couple others:
Comments from another Alliance team manager: