Advice for hosting a dual meet

[erooMynohtnA]

My college club is preparing to host a dual meet, and this is the first tournament any of our current club officers have overseen. So, I would welcome any advice.

We have two 110'X90' gyms, with standard wooden floors (it is unlikely we'll have any conductive strips), high ceilings, decent lighting, and not a whole lot of outlets.

There should be 9 schools including our own, each with six three-person squads.

I think we figured out we could fit 7 strips in each gym comfortably. How many strips should we have?

I'm also curious about the format. I imagine we'll just keep the squads together and have them rotate by school. Is there a better way?

If anyone has anything they think I have overlooked or will overlook, please point it out.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

8 strips would be better-- 8 schools fencing at a time, 4 match ups, two strips per gender per matchup. Have men in one room and women in the other, OR have two matchups per gym-- One's good for the coach, one's good for not having people move between gyms.

uh, I have to be somewhere. More later.

[annacattiva]

I was pretty fond of what they were doing with refs last year at New Englands (collegiate team championships). Separating by gender isn't necessary (maybe necessary for New Englands since there are usually at least three teams with only one gender), but the way they set it up, for every two foil and epee refs there was one sabre ref (I'm working off vague memories, so please correct me, if anyone remembers better, especially if Brian is lurking around somewhere). The foil and epee would run two matchups on separate strips, and the sabre from both matchups would get run on one strip. I'm not describing this particularly well. Anyone want to help?

Oh, plus it's nice having teams circulate and refs stand still. Nice for the refs, that is.

Anna

[bbower]

A typical NCAA single-gender dual meet takes place on two strips. There are 27 total bouts (3 fencers from school A fence each of 3 fencers from school B = 9 bouts x 3 weapons). There are a number of ways to accomplish this. My preferred method is to run 9 straight epee bouts on one strip, and alternate the foil and sabre on the other strip in sets of 3 bouts. (3 foil, 3 sabre, 3 foil, 3 sabre, 3 foil, 3 sabre) The advantage to this format is that the epee usually finishes during the 2nd set of 3 sabre bouts, allowing you to move the last round of foil to the epee strip.

With 9 schools attending, you would have 9 rounds of fencing, with 4 matches taking place each round (one team has a bye). Assuming both men and women fence, you're looking at 16 strips. Each round takes approximately 80 minutes if you're moving pretty fast ... so you're looking at a 12 hour day. I don't think this is particularly feasible. I think you need to consider a format where each match consists of 9 bouts rather than 27. (IFA style - a squad consists of an A strip, B strip and C strip fencer ... As fence As, Bs fence Bs, Cs fence Cs)

[MyrddinsPrecint]

You're looking at a 12 hour day-- IF the people running it know what they're doing. Well.

PS: Thank you Bower for the time estimate. I knew it didn't sound good, I just ddn't have the numbers.

Anyway--- The way dual meets is usually done is good for meets where space is at a minimum and you have enough refs. If you don't have enough sabre refs and you do have extra strips, then Anna's way is at least better for refs. It's much more confusing for the teams the first couple of rounds.

Anyway, assuming you switch to IFA style, make sure you have lots of chairs. And trash and recycling recepticles. And a trainer if at all possible.

[seak]

Do all the teams have to fence each other? I mean I know fencing as many colleges as possible etc etc is fun, but..............

6 rounds of dual meets is really all you want to do in a day if you like your fencers/refs and the normal dual meet format is more fun and has more flow then IFA.

If all teams have to fence each other, I would strongly recommend switching it to IFA. Also get lots of refs, and hire someone who has successfully run large meets in the past to run it for you.

[oiuyt]

Whereas I would strongly recommend staying with dual meet format and just not having a complete RR. Each school gets to pick the 5-6 other schools they want to meet. Not at all uncommon to have schools in the same location not meet each other (including in the conference that BBower helps run).

Anthony- Doesn't WI participate in the MFC dual meets? You should be familiar with how they're structured.

You should be able to fit 8 strips in each of your gyms. edit: missed that each gym appears big enough for TWO basketball courts. You can fit a TON more strips than you're considering in that much space.

-B

[erooMynohtnA]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

Whereas I would strongly recommend staying with dual meet format and just not having a complete RR. Each school gets to pick the 5-6 other schools they want to meet. Not at all uncommon to have schools in the same location not meet each other (including in the conference that BBower helps run).

Anthony- Doesn't WI participate in the MFC dual meets? You should be familiar with how they're structured.

You should be able to fit 8 strips in each of your gyms. Not tremendous loads of space around the edges for team gear, however (read: minimal).

-B

We've always gone to the Big Ten Duals hosted by Laurie Schiller at Northwestern. And I think that's the model we're using for ours. It's just a complete round robin, males one day, females the other, IIRC.

I don't know if we're trying to fit everything in one day, or if we're making a weekend of it. I'm not in charge of the organization, I just thought it would be nice to be able to discuss things intelligently at the officers' meetings, and I know fencing.net is a good resource for NCAA and non-NCAA collegiate competitive know-how

Thanks everyone. Keep it coming if you have anything else.

[seak]

I think I did not make this clear enough: if you only have one day, and you do not HAVE to fence all the teams, only fence 5-6 and do a normal dual meet.

If you have a weekend you can do half the men and half the women on one day and then finish it up the next. Realize that running 6 rounds for men and women on each day, is way better then running 12 rounds just men and 12 rounds just women on the next.

[rsy]

Originally Posted by erooMynohtnA

I think we figured out we could fit 7 strips in each gym comfortably. How many strips should we have?

This is a layout we use for putting 8 strips in a space of 95' x 56. Strips for basketball.pdf

It is a little tight, but not overly so. The strip dimensions were set up using inches and feet rather than meters for use by those who were challenged by the metric system. With your 110' x 90' you can fit 8 strips with plenty of room left over for larger ref alleys, more strip seperation and for people to move around, drop gear, etc. If you wanted and you had room to put pepole and gear off the fencing floor, you could squeeze in a lot more.

-r

[Wafath]

A few things not covered elsewhere.

If you have room, consider using a 2.5 strip format. (epee on one stirip, foil on a second, and sabre shares a single strip & ref with another match.) This is useful in my area where decent sabre refs are hard to come by, and it runs almost as fast as a 3 strip dual meet.

Brief the refs just before fencing starts. Even if they have been doing NCAA for the past 25 years, explain to them the current NCAA rules. If you assume they understand it, they will get it wrong. This should take all of ten minutes to do.

Have a copy of the NCAA rules on site. Just in case. You should only need appendix D. It's three pages long.

Print out your score-sheets well in advance. Have a few spares for when teams screw up. (if you want my version, PM me. Other versions are floating around the net.)

Decide the match order in advance by pronouncement or negotiation. Be kind to teams travel schedules. If teams have a bye round (and with 9 teams per gender, that is a given.) give teams coming long distance a bye round at the beginning or the end.

Print out the match order, and place a copy on every table.

Have someone or someones collecting score-sheets. Have them check each one to make sure it has been completely filled out and signed by both teams. Make two copies of each scoresheet, and give one to each team. If you are proactive about this you should be able to give the team their packet five minutes after their last bout.

If you have a tight schedule or a long day planned (ie, more than 5 rounds.) have someone who is bossy float around the room and move things along. No, you can't make bouts go faster, but you can minimize the time between matches, and sometimes convince teams to double strip if they are behind everyone else.

If you are going for single gender days, you would only need 12 strips set up. (9 teams = 4 matches max = 12 strips max.) I would not go more than 7 rounds per team in a single day. Very few refs should go beyond 7 rounds per day either.

If you are trying to fit both genders into a single day, ideally you would need 20-24 strips, but that is difficult in two basketball courts. You wouldn't want any less than 16, otherwise you would have too many teams sitting around.

W

[KD5MDK]

Originally Posted by rsy

This is a layout we use for putting 8 strips in a space of 95' x 56. Attachment 2428

It is a little tight, but not overly so. The strip dimensions were set up using inches and feet rather than meters for use by those who were challenged by the metric system. With your 110' x 90' you can fit 8 strips with plenty of room left over for larger ref alleys, more strip seperation and for people to move around, drop gear, etc. If you wanted and you had room to put pepole and gear off the fencing floor, you could squeeze in a lot more.

-r

They could also use 1 gym, your layout doubled and have 16 strips.
As a referee I'd want much greater separation between strips though. It sucks to get hit by the fencers, let alone the limits on your ability to call the action.

Originally Posted by Wafath

No, you can't make bouts go faster,

That depends on the refs they hire.