Registration will open this Friday for the Fall 2022 DSL soccer program.  Prior to that, I wanted to follow up on our recent league survey.  We had a great response and based on the responses I wanted to note the following:

Tie Breaker – Our tie breaker standard of head to head performance at JV/V amongst the teams that are tied will remain in place (approximately 75% of respondents in favor of keeping that in place).  I may look at sharpening the language a bit to avoid confusion in the future, but substantively, nothing will change.

League Format – We are going to allow for both 7v7 and 11v11 leagues this season (approximately 60% of respondents were in favor of makinig that change).  I have attached an updated registration form that includes these options, some of the bullet points to keep in mind when registering are as follows:

• When registering you need to keep the same format for both JV and Varsity if you are registering both.  Our scheduling requirements will not permit you to have one JV at 7v and one varsity at 11v.  You will need to figure out which league is best for your school as a whole.
• If you have multiple teams at JV or Varsity you could put one in 11v and one in 7v. (just remember the above bullet point where we need to keep JV/V together for scheduling purposes, but if you have a second JV/V team they could be in a different league).
• As of now cross-rostering of varsity 11v to varsity 7v (as well as JV11v and JV 7v) will not be permitted.   Just like we have it with different brackets, players can't cross over (if we revisit this I'll let you know, but our concern here is stopping schools from registering multiple teams and stacking them to collect trophies).
• You should not register two 7v teams at the JV or Varsity level without getting my approval in advance.  Generally speaking I am not inclined to grant that approval since if you have enough for two 7v teams, you should be playing 11v, and if I see a school with two 7v teams registered I will more than likely enter them into 11v instead.  If there is a situation that I am not considering I am open to discussing it, just know that I am inclined to say no.
• Schools that are playing 7v7 may consider shortening the field a bit for that format to 250 foot in length or so.  There will be schools that are not able to shorten the fields and if that is the case, be prepared to alter your strategy (more passing instead of dribbling, for example).  There is a decent chance that come playoffs we do not play on a shortened field since we play on turf and I can't paint new goal boxes for our games.  These are all factors that should play into whether you want to register for 7v.  
• Once all registrations are in, I will see whether or not we have enough teams to make both leagues viable, if we do not we may need to revisit and I'll reach out to you if needed.
• If we have enough to do 11v and 7v please understand that this will wreak havoc on our bracketing this season and possibly future seasons.  As schools jump in and out of brackets I'll do my best to place people where the composite rankings say you should go, but this could result in a school going up or down more than one bracket (something we try to avoid).  You will have to trust me that I am doing it fairly, and as always, if you have any questions as to how I bracketed, I am happy to take the time to talk specifics with you.
• Other things may come up, this is new and new things have unforeseen ripple effects.  Thank you in advance for both your patience and suggestions as we try to navigate this change.  It is my earnest hope though that by making the change to the two formats that we are able to keep more schools and students participating in the league and mitigate the occurrence of forfeits/cancellations throughout the season.

Rob