by SnocatzDad » Fri Jun 05, 2009 6:59 am
Speaking as a midwesterner, yes teams from California(and other states) come to our regional qualifer and try to win berths to ASA Nationals as is allowed in the rules. Sometimes they go away empty handed. Whether an outside team wins or a team from this region, it makes the regional qualifier a "special" tournament in this area where you get an opportunity to play some top teams from around the country without getting on an airplane to do so.
There are other opportunities to qualify for ASA berths in my state that are open to teams for only MN and IMO that makes it fair and provides an opportunity to maintain ASA National as a true national tournament, not just a Texas/California playoff.
We get three berths per age group for the State of MN and there are only 30 teams actively pursuing those berths, and IMO of those probably less than 10 are of the quality that they would be competitive at an ASA National and really are focused on that goal. If 3 out the 10 teams ready to pursue ASA Nationals get there that seems like a pretty reasonable ratio compared to the 6 out of 100's that are trying to get there from SoCal and NorCal.
Don't feel sorry for us at regionals, the trend seems to be that our top club programs are making great strides (MN Irish finish tied 17th at 18U ASA Gold last year and MN Sting finished 2nd at 18UA ASA Nationals in Moline last year) and what is happening is that although we don't have the number of athletes that the California's and Texan's have, the ones we have are being funneled to relatively small number of club programs which is creating very high quality teams