When It Rains...

In a year of more than a share of unpleasant surprises - missing out on MRL Premier due to foregoing the fall MRL league, half the team in HS programs and not training as a group until November, having only had 1 session since last July with the full team in attendance, planning for the tournament in Texas in December surrounding the NCAA College Cup and then having to pull out due to lack of competition, losing a player because of a passion and commitment to another sport, unsettled plans and unsettled parents - we were dealt another not to nice surprise this week when the Las Vegas College Showcase posted their brackets.  With 16 teams in the top flight, we found ourselves in the B flight with 7 other teams. 

Either this tournament believes that a team that can take the Region II title can't compete with lower ranked Region IV teams  (placed in the op bracket) or they misread our application. To add salt to the wound, three Region II teams that had not had our success were still placed in the top flight. 

Regardless, the people organizing this event are, well, not very organized.  They lost our application, though we applied in October, and thus gave out all the hotel information to almost every other participating team in the event prior to us getting our hands on it, forcing us into a very limited selection of lodging.  It is nearly impossible to get an email back from anyone involved with event management, and phone calls are rarely returned.  I've heard coaches in our club talking about the Vegas people saying that they (the organizers) are going to ruin this event, an event that is drawing top level teams from across the country.  Our U13, U14, U15, and U17 Blue teams are all making the trip this March.

Back to my girls, Cook and I have been trying in vain to connect with the tournament officials to figure out a solution here.  Let me by crystal clear - I don't think we'd walk through the B flight.  I know at least one team there that is very good (KCFC).  However, I would rather go 0-4 in the event if we got the chance to play some of the best teams in the country (FC Penn, Mustang Rampage, Carmel, Sereno, etc).  This is the way we'll improve at the pace needed to be competitive come May/June (State Cup, Regionals).   

I finally spoke directly to Saeed (the tournament organizer) and he mentioned that he had put an email out to some of the A flight teams to see if anyone would want to switch.  That's not what I wanted to hear.  I wanted to hear that they realized they made a mistake and they then mandated a lower ranked team in the A flight to move to the B flight.  That's what they did two years ago when they put the Stars (now U17) in the B flight.  We complained, the Stars got moved, then went on to win the event.

That conversation was Monday.  Today's Saturday without a word back, despite a fair share of emails and phone calls from both Cook and myself.  We'll see how things play out, but I'm not very hopeful.   

I threw a teaser email out to the parent group looking to see what would happen with already purchased airline tickets if we backed out of the event.  We had already committed to hotel rooms through the Vegas tournament housing program and I was worried that we'd lose out on that money as well.  In my mind, I would still take the team to the event, but I know the shine of the whole trip would be severely dulled if things didn't change.  Ugh...