newbi wrote:We are a 16U team trying to earn a berth to PGF from Southern California. We are entered in the Las Vegas event that has maxed out at 48 teams. Why are they only giving 2 berths at a tournament of this size? They just had a qualifier in Northern CA for the 12U division that had 29 teams and they awarded 4 berths. They have a 16U qualifier in CO this summer that has 9 teams signed up and they are awarding 2 berths. If PGF is interested in getting the best teams it seems like the number of berths at these tournaments should be based on the size of the qualifier. What tournament is going to produce the best competition - 48 teams in Vegas or the 9 teams in CO????? Teams shouldn't have to travel various states looking for the smallest amount of entries to try and improve their odds!
PGF doesn't know 6 months in advance what the turnout is going to be at each qualifier. They can only make educated guesses based on previous years and the registrations can/do fluctuate year to year based on the sequence and dates of the qualifiers. The number of berths available at qualifiers is also just what remains after teams have accepted returning and invite berths. For 16U, 5 berths went to returning teams and they're up to 19 now on invited teams. That leaves 40 Premier berths for qualifiers.
12U berths are easier to come by because there is less demand for them across the country.
Any qualifier within driving distance of SoCal (e.g. AZ, LV, NorCal) will have a lot of SoCal teams in them and you can consider them a bundle. Because of this, AZ teams have traveled to other qualifiers in the past - even on the same weekend as their local qualifier.
The CO and OR qualifiers have been good places to chase a berth in the past. The CO qualifier is the same weekend as the SoCal qualifier, so that greatly reduces the number of teams that go there. The OR qualifier is at the end, so the best teams have qualified by then.
SoCal teams need to do some soul-searching and figure out what really makes sense for them. Teams that have a hard time qualifying for PGF Nats aren't going to fare well there. PGF has added the Platinum division for 14U and 16U this year, which is probably a better fit for the teams that struggle to qualify. I suspect there will be quite a few Platinum at-large berths available after the qualifiers are done.