Everyone,
The Gulf Coast Championships will be held in Helena, MS this weekend. Dates for the tournament is Jun 10-12, 2011. We will host all age groups; Tee Ball, Coach Pitch, 10u, 12u & 16u. The tournament will start Friday night. We’ll do what we can to finish in a reasonable amount of time. But some age groups might go into Sunday. We’re just getting too big for a Fri/Sat tournament.
As we discussed at the District Meeting this spring and the Mississippi ASA meeting in Long Beach last fall, we are trying to broaden the reach and increase the importance of our Annual District Tournament. We made the decision to rename the District Tournament to the Gulf Coast Championships. It’s a title which signifies the importance of the Gulf Coast to Mississippi ASA and the strength of fast pitch softball in the region. I talked with a lot of people this weekend.
Along with our new name, we are broadening our reach. We’ve had teams come down and participate in our tournaments. Those teams and families have now joined our extended family. So we’ve changed the eligibility requirements for the tournaments. Teams must be based in Mississippi ASA District 1 or must have participated in a Gulf Coast ASA Tournament Trail event. We have a great thing going on and we need to think bigger. I hope everyone will welcome the change and new friends from Districts 2 & 6.
Two weeks in a row we’ve had 39 teams play in our Invitational Tournaments. Several teams sat the weekend out. So I am expecting this to be a big weekend. It should be a long, hot weekend again. Everyone did a great job in Biloxi this weekend. So I really don’t need to say this, but I will anyway. We are also approaching Championship Play. So these tournaments will be run like Championship Play. So I expect everyone to be on their BEST BEHAVIOR. Poor sportsmanship will not be tolerated by coaches, fans or players.
Please register online for the tournament. Primary communications will be via email. Registration will close Wednesday night. So please REGISTER ONLINE & EARLY. I’ll work to have the brackets out by noon on Thursday. When they are done, they will be posted at https://usasoftballsouthms.com/. If you don’t see them, I haven’t finished them. Be sure to hit refresh on your browser. Sometimes you have to clear out the cache to see the latest page updates. I’ll also email a packet out including directions to the fields on Thursday. Online registration is available using the link below:
https://www.usasoftballsouthms.com/index2.php?tournid=15
The Preliminaries are all over. Championship Play is rapidly approaching. I’ll send out more information about the State Tournament requirements tomorrow. I do want to clear up some common misconceptions.
1. This tournament is the classifying tournament for fast pitch teams. So if you already know you are going to play A-State, you do not have to play in the GCC. You need to play in the GCC if you plan to play in B-State or C-State.
2. The GCC does have Tee Ball. I’m not sure where people got the idea that we won’t have Tee Ball. But we’ve always had a Tee Ball Brackets and will always have it as long as I’m around.
For those on Facebook, please “Like” the Gulf Coast ASA page at http://www.facebook.com/GulfCoastASA.
ASA/USA Softball is the National Governing Body of Softball. Teams must be sanctioned with ASA Softball to participate in the Gulf Coast ASA Tournament Trail events. Sanctioning is available to all teams and players. Anyone interested in becoming ASA Sanctioned should contact me at the return email address above or my cell at 228.365.2301.
Good Luck! Get out there and play!
Thanks,,,
Tom