Hi Everyone...
My team really enjoyed this tournament. I believe there are some areas to improve and if a few things can be improve upon, this could become a "must do" tournament in Ohio.
--The venue is dynamite! Playing in the shadow of Cedar Point is awesome. The tournament provided discount tickets to Cedar Point and that, along with the waterpark hotels, made for an amazing weekend for the girls and team bonding...
--The park is very nice. Obviously the city needs to fix the surface and drainage for fields 1, 2, 3, and 4...but fields 5 and 6 were very nice. When dry, all the fields are very good...but some draining issues certainly can put a few of the fields out of commission with a rain storm. There is ample warm up areas and parking is very good.
--There was some rain on Thursday that caused delays on Friday and Saturday but the TD quit charging to park which I thought was a very nice touch.
--The City workers really put a lot of time and effort into the fields. They never stopped and brought a bunch of equipment to work on the fields. I watched them use two entire pallets of field dry to prep the fields. Clearly the TD and the city did everything they could to make things go smoothly. Great effort.
--I thought concessions were good but a little pricey. Maybe after spending $15 for a hamburger at Cedar Point made me more sensitive for prices but I decided not to purchase any food because of the price.
--This tournament drew a lot of teams from all over the state. I saw teams from Youngstown, Cleveland, Columbus, Toledo, Cincy, PA, etc... It was neat to see all the variety of teams.
--The umpires were plentiful. In two of our games we had three umps at 12u.
--The TD was always on site. She was accessible and was willing to listen to coaches input during the rain delays. There were some errors made on brackets due to field 3 being out of commission but she quickly fixed them and notified the affected coaches. All schedule revisions and changes were quickly communicated via text and email. Rain is a part of life but not once did I feel like I was out of the loop. Victoria, the TD was very responsive. Great job.
--The tournament T Shirts were very cool. The girls loved them. I would have liked to see more vendors as the park could certainly accommodate them. This park is nice enough to set up a "players village" like what you would see in world series etc.
--The park had flush toilets and they were clean and trash can liners emptied timely. Again, the city workers were plentiful and took care of the grounds.
I really think this tournament can evolve into a high profile tournament in the state. The park and city are certainly able to support our sport and they put their best foot forward for all the teams. I hope it continues to improve as I would consider to return next year.
Joe Nay
Thunder Elite 03
