[Preface: I've stayed out of this, but now that the CESA U15B Premier team did an outstanding job of settling all this on the field instead of in a meeting somewhere, I'll throw in my $.02.]
>> [soccersmylife] Maybe next year all teams [SCSCL and R3PL] should be finished ALL games before the first round is played.<<
Think about that for a moment. That means that in a bad hurricane season [which the last I've seen is forecasted for the next decade] we could have the state challenge cup theoretically go into January or even February. So no child, parent, high school coach, etc. could plan anything for any weekend for two months in the case that state challenge games will be played.
There is a more reasonable solution that has worked well in the past...see below.
>> [Cornerflag] So does this change anything for the rest of the games or is the seeding set in stone?<<
My understanding is "set in stone." From what I understand, CESA coaches knew that this could [and probably would] occur in U16B, but historically what has occurred was that SCYSA took the RIIIPL seedings "snapshot" at a time of their own choosing and then applied the rules. I believe that CESA took that as precedent. Makes sense; none of this is new -- in my understanding it's occurred in the past.
Of course, with the lawyers and appeals that occurred in the U15B this season, and the SCYSA wavering back and forth on seeding, the SCYSA will have to in the future define this better rather than rely on the understanding of all of the clubs -- because we saw in the last few weeks that relying on anything other than a very well-defined policy isn't going to work well in the future.
I personally (let me again emphasize personally) think that the SCYSA just needs to do a better job of writing their policy and then have the backbone to stick to it...but that's just me.
