1. ECNL, according to what its leaders (Lavers, Bracken, etc.) have said, was founded on a philosophy of increasing the number of meaningful games while reducing the total number of games providing a more desirable training-to-game ratio. If CESA believes, as Harry seems to be implying, that Premier and State Leagues as well as open tournaments and ODP are all inferior to participation in ECNL leagues and events, then why does CESA continue putting its ECNL teams in both ECNL and Premier leagues (increasing the number of games without dropping what it considers to be inferior competition)? Why not put the ECNL team in ECNL only and allow its other teams greater opportunity and incentive to vie for spots in Premier League resulting in a greater number of players in the club having access to higher level competition than they are already enjoying?
2. CESA does have more select teams than just those playing in ECNL. The original post of this thread was a club announcement for ECNL tryouts. Is there a similar announcement somewhere for those players, including those that might be considered "elite", wishing to tryout at CESA for non-ECNL teams? Or, is everyone required first to try out for an ECNL team? (I'm trying to understand how CESA presents its options to the players.)
1) The way I understand it is that the only reason they played in non-ECNL events/leagues this year was because CESA is hosting regionals. It would have been a shame to host the event and not give their own players at least a chance to play in it. I also think that next year, they are completely moving on. The girls won 7 out of 8 state cups, which has been fairly typical over the years. Most of the other best clubs in the southeast have gone ECNL, (GSA, CASL, CSA, BUSA, Concorde, Dallas Texans, Sting, and on and on) so state cup and regionals doesn't seem to present the 'biggest' challenge or the highest level. Having said that, there are still some very good individual teams that will still participate in regionals next year.
Take the 96 Mt. Pleasant team. They were and will be next year one of the best teams in premier league and should do extremely well in regionals I think. They could get even better next year. They could potentially play 9 games in a league where they are the better team 7,8 or even 9 times. Then, play in state cup for 3 games where they are the best team in all 3 games. Whereas, I think in ECNL they would play 18 conference games against teams that are better than what's in premier league. I just think it's the best way to prepare yourself for the next level as a player.
2) I don't think everybody is required to try out for ECNL. I really don't know what emails have gone out to players regarding tryouts. I too will be interested to see how the challenge teams do competing for regional spots. I would think that you would see some challenge teams earning those spots soon enough. I believe it's happened more than a few times over the last handful of years.
