Competitive teams play through out the summer and they play in Tournaments. These Tournaments are generally two days, Saturday and Sunday and involve both pool play and single or double elimination. But they can also be three day tournaments or in some cases can last an entire week.
Pool Play: Pool play which is normally Saturday is where teams play three or more games, these games are already scheduled and these games are guaranteed regardless of whether you win or lose. The team that wins the most games during pool play will take 1st in their pool, the team that wins the second most games will take second and so on. How you place in your pool will determine what time you play during the elimination day as well as who you will play. Generally the team who took first in one pool would play against a team that took last in another pool, for example: the team who took 1st in pool A would play the team that took last in pool B.
Elimination Day: Elimination Day is the day where teams will become eliminated until there is only one team left. There are single elimination tournaments and double elimination tournaments, single elimination means that once you have lost one game you are out of the tournament. Double elimination means that once you have lost two games you are out of the tournament. In single elimination tournaments once a team is lost they are out and teams will play each other until there is only one team left. In Double elimination after you lose your first game you will go into something called the losers bracket. You will then play against other teams with one loss until there is only one team left in the losers bracket. This team that is left will then play the last team left in the winners bracket. The winners bracket is where the teams are that haven't lost a game yet, and they play each other until there is only one team left that hasn't lost a game yet. So lets say that the team left in the winners bracket is team A and the team left in the losers bracket is team B. If team B beats team A then both teams will have to play each other again. Why? Because Team A hasn't lost yet(they were still in the winners bracket) and so team B will have to beat Team A twice to cause team A to have lost two games and to be eliminated. However, if team A beats team B in either game, then Team A wins because Team B will have already lost one game(they were in the losers bracket.)
This can be a confusing situation, if you have an upcoming tournament and you have any questions that I might be able to help you with, feel free to contact me by email at SoftballCO@gmail.com or call (303) 809-1502.
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