February 25, 2005

Spring Competition League Schedule Under Construction

Schedules for the spring season of the State Competition League are being worked on and are projected to be complete and available in the State Competition League section of this website on Saturday, March 26th. The spring season will kick off on Saturday, April 2, 2005.

To accommodate the multitude of inquiries from coaches and parents concerning the schedule, Programs Director Amy Oakeson has released a preliminary schedule of expected days and times that each age group will play. Click here for preliminary day schedule.

The preliminary schedule is subject to change due to possible scheduling conflicts and teams may not always play on the projected day or time, but can be used as an overall guide to help coaches and parents plan their busy lives.

The official start date of the spring schedule, originally slated to begin March 21st, has been delayed two weeks due to existing factors that slow down the scheduling process. Executive Director Scott Harward explains the problems facing the state office in meeting the challenges of scheduling for the State Competition League. "Although we are extremely pleased with the power and flexibility of the scheduling module that is part of ADG's Online Management System, not allowing the program to do its function continues to create problems with our scheduling process." The scheduling process continues to take many weeks to produce because much of the schedule has to be generated by hand. The power of the new scheduling system can not be put to use because of constraints created when certain time slots are published for each age group and division. The problem is compounded by the lack of available fields. The process becomes one of slotting rather than scheduling. Not only does the resulting process take longer, but it results in a less efficient use of the fields that are available.

Due to the continuing growth of our association and the ever decreasing number of fields that are available, it has become necessary to alter the scheduling process. Beginning fall 2005, the schedule for the State Competition League will be generated without slotting each division into a single set of time slots. Although the schedules will be less predictable for a team on a weekly basis, the resulting schedule will allow the Association to make more efficient use of scare resources, namely fields and referees. In addition, the simplified scheduling process will allow the Association to release the schedule earlier.