Bucknell University Athletics
Weather Forces PL Softball Tournament to be Delayed a Week
4/10/2003 8:00:00 AM | Softball
April 9, 2003
CENTER VALLEY, Pa. - Because of the extended wintry weather in the Northeastern United States this year, the Patriot League announced today that the 2003 Championship Softball Tournament will be delayed a week and re-scheduled for May 10-11. As in the past years, the Tournament will be held at the home field of the highest-seeded team from the regular season.
As of today, only 14 of 24 games scheduled for the first two weekends of the season have been played. Each League team is currently scheduled to play a four-game PL series over the next three weeks, allowing little time to re-schedule the high number of postponed games prior to the original Tournament scheduled dates on the first weekend of May.
Therefore, the League and institutional administrators determined during a conference call today that the best option was to delay the Tournament, giving each team a full weekend to make up most of their current unplayed games and to minimize missed class time for the student-athletes. The top four teams from regular-season play advance to the PL Tournament.
"The League and institutions were aware of the potential for an inordinant amount of missed class time for the student-athletes," said Dan Trump, Assistant Executive Director for Sport Management. "Changing the schedule this late in the season is not easy. But when combining the priorities of the academic schedules and the importance of playing the contests, we unanimously felt this decision was in the best interests of all involved."
Baseball teams have also had numerous postponements due to the weather conditions, but the League schedule already includes a weekend for make-up games prior to the May 10-11 championship weekend.
