1. Registration Form – You will need to fill this out and send it in to me, together with the registration fees ($100 per team)2. Player Roster form – This is not needed until later, but it will ultimately need to be filled out for each registered team prior to the start of the first game.3. Game Card Form (JV/Varsity Only) – This form is for your coaches, each game they are required to bring two of these with their player rosters of who is playing that game (Many coaches find it easiest to just type their players names and numbers in the word version of this and prior to each game delete any players that are missing). One of these goes to the opposing coach and the other goes to the referees. This is only required at the JV and Varsity levels4. Spring 2022 Timeline – This lays out key dates throughout our season5. DSL Rulebook – This lays out the rules of our league, to the extent that they differ from the high school rules.Feel free to let me know if you have any questions.
Category: Uncategorized
DSL – Off Season Playing Opportunities and Spring Registration
1. Spring Registration – Remember, league registration opens January 25th and closes February 25th. Whatever teams you have registered as of February 25th will be expected to play and you will be responsible for their registration fees. This is meant to avoid all the last minute changes that occurred last season which not only delay getting schedules out to the rest of the league, but inevitably result in unintended scheduling errors when we try to revise in a day what took over a week to create.
2. League Wide Call – Since things are starting to settle back into a routine (I’ll refrain from saying getting back to “normal” since I have no idea when and if normal ever comes back), we will go back to having annual league wide calls instead of seasonal. I want to be respectful of everyone’s time and to the extent that something changes or needs reinforced you will see it in an email from me. And of course, if there are any questions or concerns with anything prior to, during or after our season, feel free to call or email me.
3. Off Season Play – I wanted to take the league's temperature on the possibility of getting our players some more touches in the off season. As a parent of a player and a coach, the single best thing I have ever done for my players’ development is to sign them up for an indoor soccer league or futsal league over the winter. Not only do they get the continuity of play cutting back on the “rust” factor”, but both versions of soccer are extremely fast paced and emphasize quick decision making and quick passes and control. Things that are critical to youth development. We have two opportunities this season for some winter games that I wanted to gauge interest in, they are as follows:
a. Indoor League Play at Tri-County Soccer and Sports Center in Freedom, Pa. This opportunity was brought to us by our friends at St. Peter’s and Paul. Tri-County has an indoor league that plays very similar to outdoor soccer (with a few exceptions such as the field is smaller, the ball is heavier, the field is turf and fast and there are boards on the boundary (similar to ice hockey) where the ball can bounce off of and remain in play). All three of my kids have played at Tri-County over the past 10 years (and my first grader is playing there now) and it's a great venue to get some touches. Tri-County is willing to work with us and have a Diocese League Play where our teams will play one another which will allow us to play by grade instead of birth year. They can carve some time out for us on Sundays to play. This league plays 6v6 (including a keeper; recommended team size is between 8 and 11), starts January 21, last 12 weeks, and costs $1650 (all payments would go to Tri-County directly, they run the show, we are just helping put something together so our kids can get touches). If you are interested in this opportunity I’d need to know by Friday, December 24 and I’d need you to tell me what grades are interested. Tentatively I am thinking we’d start with the following brackets: Varsity League and JV, but if there is interest at the 1/2 and/or 3/4 grade levels I am happy to try to put those leagues together. We’d need a minimum of 4 teams per bracket for such a bracket to be viable. Also, our leagues would be co-ed, similar to how we do it in the fall and spring (but if this takes off and we have the numbers, I’m not opposed to doing a separate boys team and girls team in the future).
b. Futsal Tournament. While I enjoy indoor soccer, I really do love futsal. For those not familiar, it is typically played on a basketball court with a smaller and heavier ball and even more so than indoor, speed, precision and passing are absolutely critical. There are no “boards” like indoor soccer can have, so the ball can and will go out of bounds which results in a kick in (as opposed to a throw in). We are working with Total Futsal to get a Catholic Schools League Tournament in place this year and hopefully by next season, having a winter league as well. Game format would likely consist of at least three 18 minute games with opportunity to advance to semi-finals and/or finals. Venue and date are still to be determined (but we are looking at PISA in Cheswick PA on January 15-16 as a possibility). Cost is also to be determined but it would likely be in the $150-$250 range per team, which would cover court fees, ref fees, and medals and/or trophies). This league would play 5v5 (including a keeper; recommended team size would be between 7 and 9). If you are interested in this opportunity I’d need to know by Sunday, December 19 and I’d need you to tell me what grades are interested. This opportunity would be available for teams in the following brackets – 1/2, 3/4, JV, Varsity. We’d need a minimum of 4 teams per bracket for such a bracket to be viable. Also, our leagues would be co-ed, similar to how we do it in the fall and spring (but if this takes off and we have the numbers, I’m not opposed to doing a separate boys team and girls team in the future).
Schools have the ability to do either or both of the above opportnities and if there is interest in both I’ll gladly coordinate getting our schools entered. Also for both opportunities, I know different coaches have taken different positions on how to approach these off season opportunities. I have seen teams have weekly or twice weekly practices and then a game each week. I have seen teams have no practices and just roll in for games. All are fine. My personal recommendation is to have just one or two practices prior to your first game where you can get the kids used to the speed of play and to go over any differences in format from outdoor soccer. My view is that this is the offseason and it should be an enjoyable opportunity to play the game and keep the rust off, plus many of our players have other winter sports commitments such as basketball, hockey, wrestling, club soccer, etc. As a coach, I was less focussed on wins and losses and more concerned that the kids get touches and keep their skills sharp for the spring. I’ll defer to each school on how they want to address their approach, but for those that are concerned with conflicts with other winter sports, sometimes less is more.
That's all I have, feel free to reach out to me with any questions and if I do not speak with you beforehand, have a merry Christmas.
Regards,
Rob Glentzer
DSL – Post Season Email
- Post Season Play. Thanks to everyone that was able to attend one of our events over the last two weekends where we had the developmental and all girls JV/Varsity tournament and the JV/Varsity Championship series. We had 98 teams participate in both events and it was a great opportunity to see everyone come together and compete. All that soccer doesn’t happen without a lot of help, between our set up crews, volunteer field marshals, web coordinator, referee coordinator, referees, soccer coordinators, coaches, assistant coaches, parents and players so thank you all for helping out and making these last two weekends a success. Below are the winners and runners up for each bracket who deserve some recognition given how great the competition was this year.
|
Bracket |
Champion |
Runner Up |
|
1st Grade |
St. Kilian |
Sacred Heart |
|
2nd Grade |
St. Kilian |
Sacred Heart |
|
1&2 Grade |
Sts. Peter & Paul |
Providence Heights Alpha |
|
3rd Grade |
St. Kilian |
Butler Catholic |
|
4th Grade |
St. Kilian (Black) |
St. Kilian (White) |
|
3&4 Grade |
St. James |
Mary of Nazareth |
|
JV Girls |
Aquinas |
St. Kilian |
|
Varsity Girls |
Aquinas |
Sts. Peter & Paul |
|
JV MLS |
Sacred Heart |
South Hills Catholic |
|
JV Bundesliga |
St. Bede |
St. Kilian |
|
JV Premier |
St. Kilian |
Archangel Gabriel |
|
Varsity MLS |
Ave Maria |
Mary of Nazareth |
|
Varsity Bundesliga |
Providence Heights Alpha |
Sts. Peter and Paul |
|
Varsity Premier |
St. Kilian |
Archangel Gabriel |
- Spring 2022 Timeline. I’ve attached the tentative Spring 2022 Timeline. Some key dates are that registration opens on January 15th and closes on February 25th. Please plan your school’s soccer registration periods in accordance with those dates. After February 25th changes to the amount of registered teams are generally not permitted. This last season’s registration was a disaster and we need to avoid a repeat of that at all costs. If you find that you need to register or unregister a team after February 25 you must contact me immediately. After February 25th, if you are looking to add an additional team that request may be considered if the scheduling for that bracket has not already been completed; If you are looking to unregister a team that request may be considered if the scheduling for that bracket has not already been completed, if scheduling has already been completed we would strongly encourage you to honor your original submission, but if you cannot you still will have to honor the registration fees for the withdrawn team. Please note though that once I get the registration information I work fairly quickly as there are many steps behind the scenes that need to occur in order for me to get schedules out by March 20, so it is unlikely that changes post February 25 will be allowed.
- Some OffSeason Opportunities for Touches. We are still looking at some opportunities to develop some offseason opportunities for teams to get some touches, I do not have anything definitive at this time but below are some opportunities that we are working on getting some more information on:
-
- Looking at partnering with an indoor soccer venue for a catholic indoor soccer league, more details to come on this opportunity
- Looking at having a catholic Futsal tournament this year with the possibility of building that out to a Futsal league in the following year
- St. James should be having its indoor spring season Kick Off Tournament again late winter/early spring and we will share with you the details once we are able.
Fall Playoff Schedule
All games to be played at Seton LaSalle Catholic School
| Sat., November 6th | Sun., November 7th |
| JV Bundesliga Semi-Finals St. Bede v St. Monica 8:00 am | JV Bundesliga Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 1:00 pm |
| JV Bundesliga Semi-Finals St. Kilian (White) v St. James 9:15 am | JV MLS Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 2:20 pm |
| JV MLS Semi-Finals Sacred Heart v Holy Sepulcher Catholic 10:30 am | JV Premier Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 3:40 pm |
| JV MLS Semi-Finals Mary of Nazareth v South Hills Catholic 11:45 am | Varsity Premier Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 5:00 pm |
| JV Premier Semi-Finals Aquinas (Navy) v Archangel Gabriel 1:00 pm | Varsity MLS Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 6:20 pm |
| JV Premier Semi-Finals Blessed Frances Seelos v St. Kilian (Green) 2:15 pm | Varsity Bundesliga Finals (#1/#4 winner) v. (#2/#3 winner) 7:40 pm |
| Varsity Premier Semi-Finals Archangel Gabriel v Blessed Frances Seelos 3:30 pm | |
| Varsity Premier Semi-Finals St. Kilian (Green) v Aquinas 4:45 pm | |
| Varsity MLS Semi-Finals Ave Maria v Holy Sepulcher 6:00pm | |
| Varsity MLS Semi-Finals Mary of Nazareth v. Sacred Heart 7:15 pm | |
| Varsity Bundesliga Semi-Finals Sts. Peter & Paul v St. James 8:30 pm | |
| Varsity Bundesliga Semi-Finals Providence Heights Alpha v Divine Mercy 9:45 pm |
DSL – JV Varsity Pairings and Playoff Schedule
- Confirmation of Games. If your team qualified for the playoffs you need to respond back to me with Saturday (and potential Sunday) game times and confirm that you can make both your scheduled games. As is always our policy, if you cannot attend your game time, there will be no rescheduling, we will go to the next highest seeded team and adjust our games accordingly. Respond no later than the end of day tomorrow (Tuesday November 2) and let me know if you can attend or not. Also, I am fully aware that this is a long day Saturday and some teams will play earlier or later than they may otherwise like. Scheduling issues this fall prevented us from spreading out the Playoffs over 3 or 4 days like we have done in the past, so we will be playing 12 games this Saturday. It’ll be a long day, but no one will have a longer day than me, I will be there for all 12 games to make sure things run smoothly.
- Registration Fee and Game Day Cards. All teams will need check in at least 15 minutes prior to their scheduled game times with two items: (1) their registration fee of $135 dollars per team (note a slight $5 increase over last season since each bracket has 3 playoff games instead of 2, with the difference covering the extra cost for the three referees that we use in the playoff matches). This fee should be in cash to cover game day costs that will be paid that day (receipts are available if needed) and (2) three game day rosters in hand, one for me, one for the opposing team and one for the referees (see attached for form). This roster should match your regular season roster. Playing players who were not on your roster will result in a game forfeiture.
- Jerseys. Lower seeded teams will be away teams and should wear white. Higher seeded teams will be the home team and will wear dark colors. In the event that both teams’ jerseys are too similar (as determined by the commissioner), lower seeded teams should have pinnies on hand to wear.
- Rules. The rules are attached. Please read them. I was slightly disturbed by the fact that a few coaches this past weekend at the developmental tournament were not aware of the rules. As a coach you should know the rules to give your team every possible advantage. They are attached and they are not that lengthy, read them.
- Parking – all players, referees and coaches are to park in the lower parking lot and walk up the hill to the field. The only exceptions are those with handicap plates and they are permitted to use one of the few handicapped spaces at the top of the hill. Do not use those spots unless you have the handicapped plates, failure to strictly comply may result in your vehicle getting towed and/or ticketed as emergency vehicles need to be able to access the field.
- Concessions. Seton LaSalle boys and girls soccer will be running a concession stand for our convenience. Please utilize it if needed.
- Mother of Mercy
- Sacred Heart
- Mary of Nazareth
- South Hills Catholic
JV Bundesliga
- St. Bede
- St. Kilian (White)
- St. James
- St. Monica
JV Premier
- Aquinas (Navy)
- Blessed Frances Seelos
- St. Kilian (Green)
- Archangel Gabriel
Varsity MLS
- Ave Maria
- Mary of Nazareth
- Sacred Heart
- Holy Sepulcher
Varsity Bundesliga
- Providence Heights Alpha
- Sts. Peter & Paul
- St. James
- Divine Mercy
Varsity Premier
- St. Kilian (Green)
- Archangel Gabriel
- Blessed Frances Seelos
- Aquinas
DSL – Weekly email – Following up on Saturday’s Tournament and looking ahead to the JV/Varsity Playoffs
Good afternoon everyone,
- Let me know your thoughts on how the day went, what worked well and what could use a little more refinement. Each season we get this a little more fine tuned but there is always room for improvement. I’m particularly curious about your thoughts on the venue and the new 7v7 format for the 3rd and 4th grade teams since both were new to this season’s tournament.
- If we decide to use this venue again there are a couple items we as a league will need to improve upon:
-
- Parking I would have thought it went without saying, but we cannot allow our parents to triple park people in. We had 7 or 8 families stuck for a few hours because some people couldn’t be bothered to not park them in. I personally went and checked out the situation, and while the lot was very full I did see many spaces open farther away in the lot. Please be mindful of this next time. If it happens again the venue will make us hire staff to park cars and that cost will increase tournament registration fees across the league;
- Post game clean up. We were allowed to set up our tents and watch the games from the turf. This is the same turf that other teams have their games and practices on throughout the week. While cleaning up post tournament it quickly became apparent that numerous tents left uneaten chips, cookies, sunflower seeds, and other garbage on the turf (and as a reminder, sunflower seeds were not permitted at all). This resulted in me and my son personally spending an extra hour or so on the fields on our hands and knees picking them– needless to say, my day started early and I was on the road at 5am to set up– ending the day by picking up peoples leftover garbage, sunflower seeds and crumbs is not how I expected to end it. I am left with one of four options:
- (1) Ask (and receive) everyone’s cooperation in the future to not allow this to occur again,
- (2) not book large turf venues like this in the future,
- (3) forbid the use of team tents and forbid spectators from being on the turf,
- (4) increase registration fees to hire someone to come in and clean up after us. My preference is to go with option 1 and ask that for future tournaments each school be responsible for making sure that every bit of food is off the fields near and around them. If that doesn’t work out though I’d need to resort to one of the other three options.
That was it on my end, overall the day went great and if we can do a little better on the above issues, I think we will be in great shape going forward.
DSL – Some last minute tournament items
Coaches:
Revised DSL Tournament Schedules
DSL Schedule change to 4th grade Tournament
DSL Tournament Schedules and Information Email
I’m looking forward to seeing everyone this Saturday, Oct 30 at the No Off-season facility located at 904 Little Deer Creek Valley Road, Russellton, PA 15076. We will be playing on the two turf fields in the back of the facility. It will be a busy day and we will be running a record high of 9 fields throughout the day to accommodate all of the teams that wished to participate in this end of season event.
This email contains a lot of information for the tournament. Please read it all. Also please forward to any new coaches that may be taking the helm for just the tournament and are not on the regular season distribution list. This email also contains several important attachments including:
- Excel document containing a bracket tab and a game tab. These tabs contain bracket info, coaches info (to the extent received)/team/school name, game times and fields. Please plan on arriving at least thirty minutes prior to your first game to get checked in and be at your field at least 15 minutes prior to your designated start time. Failure to be at your game, ready to go will result in you receiving a forfeit loss. For standing purposes such losses will be scored as 0-4 and the forfeiting team will receive 0 standing points for that game and the other teams will receive 3 standing points.
Also, every coach needs to review your game times/locations and email me your team’s time and fields so we can confirm that you are good to go.
- Word document containing a blank team roster. Every team must hand in their completed team roster and their $100 registration fee per team prior to their first game (if I haven’t received this fee from you yet, please bring in cash the day of and i can get you a receipt if needed)
- Word document containing the tournament rules. Please read and familiarize yourself with the rules. Note that the build out rule is in effect for the developmental brackets, that all scoring must occur on the offensive side of the field, goalkeepers are not permitted to punt, that offsides will be called for 3rd grade and up and that at second grade and below we will generally be more lenient, but that we will call obvious “cherry picking” types of offsides at those age levels.
- pdf of the field layout
Based on the registrations we will have the following brackets, there will also be an awards ceremony for the champion and runner up at the DSL tent immediately following their championship game:
First grade – 14 teams, 4 brackets, winner of each bracket advances to semifinals and then those winners advance to the championship game.
Second grade – 14 teams, 4 brackets- the winner of each bracket advances to semifinals and then those winners advance to the championship game.
First/Second grade – 5 teams, 1 bracket – the top two seeds in this bracket advance to the championship game.
Third grade – 12 teams, 4 brackets- the winner of each bracket advances to semifinals and then those winners advance to the championship game.
Fourth grade – 11 teams, 2 brackets- the top two seeds in each bracket advance to semifinals and then those winners advance to the championship game.
Third/Fourth grade – 10 teams, 2 brackets- the top two seeds in each bracket advance to semifinals and then those winners advance to the championship game.
JV Girls – 4 teams, 1 bracket – the top two seeds in this bracket advance to the championship game.
Varsity Girls – 4 teams, 1 bracket – the top two seeds in this bracket advance to the championship game.
All scoring will be tracked at the DSL Tent which will be located in the middle of fields 5 through 8. Additionally there will be a webpage where results are updated: https://pittdsl.org/tournament/
If you haven’t sent me coaching info yet, please send that to me by the end of day Monday. I have filled in the excel doc with all coaches info that I have received to date and am missing information for quite a few teams from the following schools at this point: Aquinas, AGS, Ave Maria, MAry of Nazareth, St. Bede, and St. Kilian.
Remember to read the facility rules and share them with your players/parents. All tents must be weighted down appropriately (but not staked, that is not permitted). If tents are not weighted down you will have to take them down and there is a chance of rain that day. Also no pets are permitted, no grills are permitted and no coolers larger than “six pack” coolers are permitted.
As I mentioned above, there is a chance of rain that day. We will play rain or shine so please dress appropriately for the weather. Good luck everyone and let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing you all this Saturday.
Regards,
Rob Glentzer
