I wrote yesterday about the possibility of an undefeated team not winning their flight at the Pacific Northwest 40 & Over Sectionals due to points per position being used, so what ended up happening?
Well, two undefeated teams were beat out by teams they beat in their flights, because the teams that "lost" accumulated more points in their other matches.
In one of the 3.0 women's flights, an undefeated team not advance out of their flight. TCSP lost 3 points to 2 to Galbraith TC in both team's last match, and Galbraith had won their other two matches so they were undefeated, yet TCSP won the flight 11 points to 10 because they had won their other two matches more easily. I have to think both teams knew the situation going into the match and TCSP knew 2 points would wrap it up for them and Galbraith knew they needed a 4-1 win, so I hope it wasn't a surprise, but what I said could happen did.
And it happened for the 3.5 women too! In flight A, BTA won the flight with 12 points, but lost their second match to George Fox 3-2 who finished with 10 points. It turns out BTA won their other two matches 5-0 while George Fox went undefeated winning their other two matches 3-2 and 4-1 but came up short despite not losing a match. Going into their last matches, the teams were tied at 7 points and George Fox was in the lead on the head-to-head tie-breaker, but BTA won 5-0 while George Fox only won 3-2.
This is the nature of points per position, winning the team match only has value in that it accumulates more points than losing, and head-to-head is a tie-breaker that can come into play, but it is points that really matter and you can be beat out even if you "win" all your matches.
So this is definitely different than normal, under the old system different teams would be going to the finals from both flights, and perhaps going to Nationals. To be fair, the regular season flights were all played with points per position so this wasn't new or a change, and I really hope no players were surprised by the result.
What do you think?
Yes as a player on the Galbraith 3.0 team, our team is disappointed that we did not advance to the finals. We feel that were the best team because we won all 3 matches and it doesn't seem fair not to advance to the finals and get the opportunity to go Nationals. We don't like the point system.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry your team had to be one put in this position.
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