My team's division, U16, was able to complete play albeit with 20 minute games on Sunday. I have no complaints about the unavoidable delay of games due to Mother Nature's whims. However, I do feel that our team was unnecessarily jerked around on Saturday.
Saturday morning we found that, due to the closing of fields 3 and 4 at Patriot's Point, our games were moved and rescheduled as follows:
1:30 PM at Moultrie Middle School
7:10 PM at Town Hall field.
Around 11:15 AM, we found out that the team we were scheduled to play at 7:10 PM did not show up for their 10:50 AM game and were not coming. We were awarded a 3-0 victory by forfeit.
After locating the field at the under-construction Moultrie Middle School (not the current Moultrie Middle School), we arrived at 12:45 for warmups for our first game. The rain ceased, the referees arrived and all looked well. At around 1:00 we received a call from a tournament official who said all games were canceled for the rest of the day. I told her the field and weather looked good and we should be able to play. She said, "I'm sorry, it's canceled." The referees, who couldn't believe that, called their assignor who confirmed that the game was canceled so they left. I met with my team and sent them all on their way.
Around 1:20, after we had all left the field, I received a call from the tournament director who said the game was back on at 2:00 PM. So, we had to get on the cell phones and call all of our players who had dispersed to various places in the Charleston area. One family was already 15-20 miles up I-26 on their way back to Columbia. Fortunately, we were able to get everyone back in time to start the match with a full side at 2:00 PM but we had some pretty frustrated and upset parents. Not sure why this off and then on-again indecision took place.
Due to the forfeit, we only played 2 games on the weekend, one was 30 minute halves on Saturday and the other was 20 minutes total on Sunday. So we played 80 minutes, the equivalent of one full game, all weekend.
