I did this last year and we ended up with an almost identical schedule to the year before, but I'm once again seeking opinions from everyone about what tournaments to put on our calendar for the 2012-13 season.
I can tell you that the Leatherneck is moving to the weekend of November 10-11 and the SI Elite is going away at this point.
It would make no sense to go to Vegas for the Sin City Open in January. There were only 4 women's teams there. So, you're talking about going to the two tournaments before Christmas. I always enjoyed the 24 hour one way road trip to Vegas when I bowled years ago.
Based on the schedule last year, we would leave on a Saturday, compete Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and return Thursday. That would be December 15-20 in 2012 if they do the same type of schedule. Based on projected flight costs, no more than 18 people could go and you would be limited in the number of balls you could take unless you wanted to pay more for extra baggage. The rosters would have to be selected and tickets booked prior to the Thanksgiving tournament to allow for the most reasonable advance reservation.
If the cost at the time of booking is any more than $350/ticket including taxes, then we would travel by bus most likely, leaving on Friday and driving straight through. Returning on Thursday and driving straight through to arrive back in St. Louis on Friday. I checked prices on Southwest to Vegas and the cheapest round trip ticket is going for about $460/person. That would mean about $9700 in cost for 18 people by the time you added vans to get around in Vegas. If you wanted to fly from somewhere other than St. Louis to get there, the school probably wouldn't pay for it.
If we went to Vegas for those two tournaments, we would drop the trip to Atlanta. We wouldn't need another tier one and that's the longest trip we have otherwise.
...and the Vegas tournaments are outside of when school is in session, so we would have to address that issue too. Gonna be a hard sell.
As far as going west, another option would be to skip the Orange and Black and bowl Mid States. Would you want to do that?
Any other thoughts?
-- Edited by philmark11 on Tuesday 1st of May 2012 11:12:35 AM
I agree with Darla, Vegas, or something west of us, we bowl everything in the midwest and would be nice to go west to bowl. See some teams that we usually don't get to bowl against.
Similar to last year, I vote no on skipping O&B since it has a match play format and I heard mid-states is pretty boring. It's definitely a fun tournament to start the season out with and I look forward to it every year (average boosters are always nice) but that's only on the guys side, I don't know much about the girls point of view since we bowl at different centers.
The Kegel ISBPA or whatever was a pretty cool tournament we added and I'd be down to bowl that again. The competition was good with a lot of the bigger schools there and it has a different but fun format.
As for Vegas, what if some members only have a 6hr car ride? :D
Can we at least start some negotiations with the school about Vegas? Like if the school doesn't want to pay the extra costs, couldn't we agree to fundraise to cover some of it? I know, fundraisers are a pain and only half the people ever do any work...I know how bowling fundraisers go. But, speaking for myself, I'm soooo willing to take on all that work if it gets us to Vegas! And the school might save some money on return tickets if some people stick around to bowl JBT Main Event or if us West Coasters just go home from Vegas and cover that expense ourselves.
If nothing else, just tell the school that it would be good advertising for the school and the program since the Vegas tournaments are streamed live on bowl.com and if more bowlers see the program and decide to come here, it's more money in their pockets! Lol
Plus, it would be really nice for us West Coasters to be close enough to home for our families to come watch us bowl for a change :)
I know it'd be a big sell to the school, but I think if we tried, we could be very persuasive!
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TENTATIVE 2012-13 Master Schedule is Out (there may be some changes)
Based on where everything is falling, what follows appears to be our options for the 2012-13 season:
Oct 6-7, 2012: MW Collegiate (tier 1), Wauwatosa, WI
Oct 13-14: Western Shootout, Indianapolis, IN OR Midstates, Wichita
Oct 20-21: Orange & Black, Dayton, OH OR
ISBPA Kegel, Peoria, IL
Oct 27-28: Boilermaker, W. Lafayette, IN
Nov 3-4: Brunswick Southern (tier 1), Marietta, GA
Nov 10-11: Leatherneck, Quad Cities, IL
Nov 17-18: Striking Knights, Louisville, KY
Nov 23-24: Team Match Games (tier 1), Fairview Hts/Belleville, IL
Jan 12-13, 2013: Hoinke Bearcat, Cincinnatti, OH OR
Eagles Baker Challenge, Addison, IL
Jan 19-20: Blue & Gold (tier 1), South Bend, IN
Jan 26-27: Lions Classic, St. Charles, MO
Feb 2-3: McK Baker Challenge, Fairview Hts/Belleville, IL
Feb 16-17: Hoosier (Tier 1), Indianapolis, IN
Mar 10-11: Sectionals; Allentown, PA, Smyrna, TN, Fairview Hts, IL, Vegas
April 18-20: Nationals, Lincoln, NE
The Leatherneck moved weekends, and I'm not currently planning to schedule anything the first weekend of December so everyone can just focus on finals, but because the Orange & Black and Kegel are on the same weekend at this point, I added the Western Shootout to keep us at 13 tournaments, meaning 8 straight weekends this fall (7 straight on the road). Thoughts?
Final master schedule will be released in two weeks, and at that point, I'll have to finalize things quickly. Stay tuned.
-- Edited by philmark11 on Monday 4th of June 2012 11:24:57 PM
As for the choice between Hoinke and Eagles Baker Challenge, I don't think I really have a preference. I can't really remember the Hoinke from this past year for some reason so I'm not sure.
The Hoinke has been the preference the last few years. It's the one with 10 bonus pins for beating the bowler in the same spot in the lineup on the other team.
So you're saying basically 1 team of each will be going to Vegas? The only reason I would even want to travel to Vegas is for points. Every year it seems we are ranked lower than a team that went to Vegas.
As for the Hoinke or Eagles, I'd rather go to the Hoinke because it gives us more games especially in January when we are starting to look at the nationals team.
It's really expensive to fly to Vegas these days, so if we were approved to go, the number of people that could go would have to be minimal. Plus, the logistics of everyone coming from all over the place at that time of year would be a mess, whether we went to Vegas or Allentown for that matter. But, as Randy said, it's a moot point until we're approved to go. I asked again, but I'm assuming the answer will be the same as it's always been.
Apparently, Darla. I just took the dates straight off the preliminary tournament list and apparently they weren't updated from 2012. I'm sure that will be corrected before the final schedule is posted publically.
Any preference between the Western Shootout in Indianapolis and Midstates in Wichita the second weekend of October? Haven't gone to either in many years, but looks like we'll go to one of them since Orange & Black and ISBPA Kegel are on the same weekend.
Western Shootout (formerly the Brickyard)= 6 team games/16 baker at Western Bowl. No bonus, total pins wins. Last year, 21 varsity mens (40 total); 16 varsity womens (23 total) 2011 Men's top 5 Robert Morris-Illinois Morehead State Notre Dame College Purdue University of Northern Ohio
2011 Women's top 5 Robert Morris-Illinois Marian Robert Morris-Peoria Purdue Ball State
Midstates = 10 team games/16 baker games at Northrock Lanes. No bonus, total pins wins. Last year, 17 varsity mens (28 total); 10 varsity womens (18 total) 2011 Men's Top 5 Wichita Midland West Texas Newman Minnesota-Mankato
2011 Women's top 5 Central Missouri Wichita Midland Newman West Texas
Well those both sound pretty boring. Seems like Western Shootout if we wanna go to Indy yet again with more teams and more competition or Mid-States to take on Wichita/Midland and go somewhere kinda new. Can we just ask the Kegel or Orange and Black director to switch to that weekend?
Got a call this morning in response to my reservation for our teams. Midstates already has reservations for a total of 13 more teams than last year. Looks like a good, competitive tournament shaping up.
Hey, Philipe, should be pretty close to finalizing the sche. I'm down with Midstates and Orange and Black, but I don't really care. I'll go anywhere they decide.
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"It's not who we are underneath, but what we do that defines us."
I've already contacted Midstates about us bowling there. They've already received enough reservations to top the attendance from last year, so it should be a good tournament. I'm just waiting for the final official schedule to be released from the USBC Collegiate so I can submit it to the school.
Here's our final tentative schedule:
MW Collegiate-Wauwatosa, WI Midstates-Wichita, KS Orange & Black-Dayton, OH Boilermaker-Lafayette, IN Brunswick Southern-Marietta, GA Leatherneck-Davenport, IA Striking Knights-Louisville, KY Match Games-Fairview Hts/Belleville, IL
Hoinke Bearcat-Cincinnati, OH (J-term) Blue & Gold-South Bend, IN (J-term) Lion's Classic-Home McK Baker Challenge-Fairview Hts/Belleville, IL Hoosier-Indianapolis, IN
8 straight weekends in the fall starting the first weekend of October and ending with Match Games over Thanksgiving weekend. There's a chance Match Games might end up on Saturday/Sunday instead of Friday/Saturday, but it hasn't been changed yet.
2 weekends during J-term Our tournament the last weekend of January, followed by the Baker Challenge. Then a weekend off before the Hoosier wraps up the regular season the 3rd weekend of February.
