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Online now: 1 member: Say Hey Kid; 14 anonymousDiscussion: Older age groups playing younger age groups?
| Posted | Discussion |
| Dec. 16 Se11out 14 posts | Is SSUSA going to allow older age groups to play younger age groups in qualifying tournaments this upcoming year? For example 50 Major playing in a 40 AAA bracket or 50 Major + playing in a 40 Major bracket. There was some confusion over this last year. I also don’t see any discussion about this in minutes from the SSUSA meeting. |
| Dec. 16 DaveDowell Men's 70 4432 posts | There will be occasions this Season where tournament divisions will be comprised of differing age group (and/or rated) teams ... In most instances, matching teams with equivalent rating index numbers is how this works, sometimes with equalizers if an exact match isn't there ... The topic isn't mentioned in the National Rules Committee minutes because nobody proposed that the current procedure be considered for modification ... |
| Dec. 19 Se11out 14 posts | So my 50 Major team can play in the 40AAA bracket of the 40’s Spring World Championship 3/16-3/17 in Arizona? |
| Dec. 19 SSUSA Staff 3607 posts | Approving a team's request to "play younger" is going to be a decision made by the SSUSA office closer to the entry deadline date at the end of February ... Normally, the 50-Major team would be expected to play with 50+ age group Spring World's the following week in St. George, UT ...IF APPROVED, and a 50-Major team and a 40-AAA team ended up in the same tournament and grouping, they would play without an equalizer because they share a common rating index number ("8") ... |
| Dec. 20 Se11out 14 posts | So the answer is “no” my 50 major team cannot play in the 40 AAA bracket. My team cannot wait 3 weeks before a tournament to plan a travel tournament. This is the reason I brought this up. My team doesn’t have a enough guys to play the following weekend in the 50’s, so we wanted to play in the 40’s. Last year I was personally told by Terry Hennessy that a team can always play down in age anytime they want to but clearly this isn’t true. Can SSUSA please discuss this and make an official announcement letting teams know that you cannot play down if you want to. And please don’t respond with “teams can play down as long as it’s approved at the entry deadline”. That just doesn’t work for teams that need to plan travel arrangements. |
| Dec. 20 SSUSA Staff 3607 posts | Se11out ... You say the answer is "No", which would indicate that you must have made the request to Sacramento and were turned down ... Maybe you should re-contact them, since that's not an item that's going to be decided and/or resolved in the Message Board context ... |
| Dec. 20 mck71 Men's 60 352 posts | Se11out - what you can do is pay an additional registration fee to register your 50M team as a 40AAA team as they're equal in RI. As long as you don't pick up players for that tourney that would push your rating up (i.e. add 4 40M or M+ players) then your 50M team could compete in any 40AAA division tourney. Usually happens with M+ teams that want to play M because of the lack of teams playing M+ (ex. 55M+ playing as a 50M team). We did it a few years back as a 55M team, we were always struggling to get enough guys so we picked up 2 guys (younger brother and a cousin new to Sr Softball who were 50) and played 50AAA the rest of the year. We didn't win any tourneys that year but we were at least competitive and able to finish playing out the year. All about creative solutions. :-) I would call the Home Office to confirm this is still a valid workaround. Good luck! |
| Dec. 20 Se11out 14 posts | This is a simple yes or no question. Can a team play down in age group in a qualifier? It sounds like you want to see who the team is and then determine if you will allow them to play. It’s irrelevant now as my team isn’t going to participate. |
