Playoffs Back to Original Schedule!
As you may know, Bolingbrook Park District had changed the playoff schedule so that all games would be on Friday, August 3. We had an issue with this and addressed it with Chris Corbett of the Bolingbrook Park District.
The primary reason for the change was due to the pending USSSA State Championship tournament on Aug 10-12. One of the other teams who will be taking place in this tournament was trying to be proactive on the behalf of all the teams in Bolingbrook that would be taking part in the USSSA tournament that weekend. This includes Tailgaters, PB&J, Aftershock and the players on the Bulldogs Softball Club that play for Adobo.
Without getting into details about what was discussed, bottom line is that we are back on with the original schedule of the first round on Friday, August 3 and the semi and final rounds on Friday, August 10. This came out as a result of a conversation that Chris had with Mark Pawlowski (Director of the USSSA State Championship tourney) who guaranteed that none of the teams from Bolingbrook would play on Friday evening.
It’s the opinion of the Bulldogs Softball Club that the schedule shouldn’t have been changed in the first place, regardless of the USSSA schedule. We feel that all schedule changes should be done with at least 2-weeks notice if not longer and with the consent of all owners, not just a subset. The USSSA schedule is put out at the beginning of the year and both the Bolingbrook Park District and the teams which participate in these tournaments, could have (and should have) cross-referenced the schedules at an earlier date.
In the future, to avoid any of these conflicts, the Bulldogs will do a better job of working with Milo Phelps (Manager of Adobo Softball) to better understand the tournament schedule, to ensure that we do not have this type of conflict in the future.
The truth of the matter is that either night would not have been optimal for the Bulldogs and we, also, would have preferred a single night tournament. However, the schedule was set and we had additional individuals who made plans for this up coming weekend due to the bye that we earned for Friday, August 3.
Chris Corbett is new to the Bolingbrook Park District this year and this was a learning lesson for him, as well as ourselves. He was not aware, as to how many teams in our league actually played tournament softball. Chris will be sure to double-check these situations in all future seasons.
In addition, we feel that Chris understands our point of not being excluded from major decisions regarding the format, scheduling or any changes in our league. The Bulldogs Softball Club is of the opinion that all teams should have an equal voice in all issues and decisions. We will continue to work with the Bolingbrook Park District and Chris Corbett to ensure the integrity and quality of the Bolingbrook Softball league. We appreciate Chris’ commitment to dealing with all issues that arise and know that he is committed to working with all teams to make this league a success.
Bulldogs Management