Submitted by webmaster on October 21, 2007 - 7:19am.
Tagged:

• Associations
• Slowpitch
• ASA

On Oct. 20th ASA held their annual state meeting in Anchorage. Representatives from Anchorage, Fairbanks, Kenai, Homer, Mat-Su and Southeast were in attendance. During the state meeting members tackle classification, state and invitaional tournament schedules, proposed codes changes and more. This year there were some major changes that require some explanation. click the headline to read more!

Classification

Every year the State Classification committee ( State Player rep and one member from each district) meets on the Friday before the meeting. Each district supplies their final standings and all tournaments results, the district then recommend teams to be moved up or down based on level of play in league and/or tournaments. Here is what this year's commitee recommended and had approved. (if your team isn't listed, then you will play at the official level you were at at the end of play this season, so teams that were moved mid-season will stay at those classifications unless listed again)

Men's and Womens moving Up	Coed Moving Up
Men's D to C	Coed C to B
The Packaging Store (Anc)	Matrix (Fbx)
Debe Reischke (Fbx)	Coed D to C
Talkeetna Spurs (MS)	Providence Imaging (Anc)
Valley Cubs (MS)	Hallmark Homes (Anc)
Tru-Built (MS)	The Grind (Anc)
Men's E to D	Aurora Squad (Fbx)
USAG (Ft. Rich)	Senator Slammers (Fbx)
Wells Fargo (Fbx)	Coed E to D
Riptide (Homer)	Veco Alaska (Anc)
Brew Crew (MS)	Bush Company (Anc)
Women's D to C	Journey (Fbx)
Bush Company (Anc)	University Redi Mix (Fbx)
Subway (Fbx)	Splash & Dash (Fbx)
Women's E to D	Spenard Builders (Homer)
Shelton Electric (Anc)
Local Electric (Kodiak)
Men's and Women's moving down	Coed moving down
Women's C to D	Coed B to C
Cliffside Community (Anc)	Mixx Grill (Anc)
Teams have the right to petition the State classification board to be reclassed. Also teams having FEWER that five players from the level above can play down a league. So if your team gets bumped up to C and four of you want to stay in D, you can do so as long as no one else (but your four players) came from a C team.	Coed C to D
	Ben's Auto (Fbx)
	Frontier Opportunities (Fbx)
	Bast Dental (Fbx)
	Fairbanks Tile (Fbx)
	Coed D to E
	JJ's/Bush Co.
	Fullford Electric (Fbx)
	Boatel (Fbx)

League Shifting

With all the teams in the proper classification it was recommended that the state take action to move our entire programs to their proper levels of play. The argument was that while Alaska teams cannot compete at their respective national levels (for example a Men's C team often travels out of state and is re-designated as a Men's D to be competitive at National tournaments) we need to better classify teams within the state, the top Men's and Women's teams should be A players, and the top Coed teams should be Coed Majors. So it was proposed that all teams, after the above re-classification, get bumped up two letters. What that would ahve meant is that you would be in the SAME league playing the SAME teams but your letter level would have changed two levels. The advantage to this is that locally we would be able to play at the home run levels of the national classifications and if a team chose to travel out to a national, regional or invitation tournament they may ask the state commisioner, Rod Hill, to re-class their team to the appropriate level. After lengthy discussion the proposal was amended to one level change so here is a handy chart that will help you determine what your team's level of play will be for 2008:

Men's and Womens Classification			Coed Classification
In 2007 if you were this after reclass		You will be this in 2008		In 2007 if you were this after reclass		You will be this in 2008
Men's C	==>	Men's B		Coed B	==>	Coed A
Men's D	==>	Men's C		Coed C	==>	Coed B
Men's E	==>	Men's D		Coed D	==>	Coed C
Women's C	==>	Women's B		Coed E	==>	Coed D
Women's D	==>	Women's C		Coed Rec	==>	Coed Rec
Women's E	==>	Women's D

If you are a team manager please explain this to your team, unless your team was reclassed a level by the state board, you will still be playing with the same teams you played league and tournaments with in 2007

Home Runs

The state code was als changed to reflect the shift in levels above, so the new home run rules by state code are:

New Home Run Rules
Mens & Womens						Coed
Men's B	4		Men's Masters	4		Coed A	3
Men's C	2					Coed B	2
Men's D	0*		Women's - Unlimited			Coed C	1
* with an Inning ending out						Coed D	0

NOTES: The National meeting is this winter, at that meeting the national code may change and the state code will be changed to reflect the national code. Also, local associations may chose to use their own home run rules for league play and invitiationals, State tournaments will use the above list.

State Tournaments

This year the state associaiton chose to change up the tournament schedule in an attempt to encourage teams to travel to their respective coed and men's/women's events. Rather than hold these tournaemnts on back to back weeks, they have chosen to split them. Here is the schedule for 2008:

2008 Alaska ASA State Tournament Schedule
Division	Date	Host	Format	Fee
JO GFP 12U-18U	July 19-20	Fbx	DE	$250/275*
Men's Masters	July 26	Anc	DE	$250/275*
Women's Masters	July 27	MS	DE	$250/275*
Men's Wood Bat	July 27	MS	DE	$250/275*
Coed A (was B)	August 9-10	Anc	DE	$250/275*
Coed B (was C)	August 9-10	Anc	DE	$250/275*
Coed C (was D)	August 9-10	Fbx	DE	$250/275*
Coed D (was E)	August 9-10	MS	DE	$250/275*
Men's B (was C)	August 23-24	Anc	DE	$250/275*
Men's C (was D)	August 23-24	Fbx	DE	$250/275*
Men's D (was E)	August 23-24	Kenai	DE	$250/275*
Women's B (was C)	August 23-24	Anc	DE	$250/275*
Women's C (was D)	August 23-24	MS	DE	$250/275*
Women's D (was E)	August 23-24	Fbx	DE	$250/275*
* Depending on total team participation, State tournaments may be $250 or $275

A full schedule of all 2008 tournaments is being compiled and will be posted as soon as we get it.