After a complete washout in 2017, Paul Ramsey wasn’t sure that he wanted to continue running the Santa Barbara Shootout any longer. The once-in-a-century tropical storm that ravaged California last February literally wiped out the annual event that marks the unofficial start to the Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associates (WCLA) season. Fields were under water; parking lots were inaccessible due to mud. Games were cancelled.

Over three decades, the seaside community of Santa Barbara had grown into a popular early-season destination for women’s collegiate club players. With the Pacific Ocean on one side, the picturesque Santa Ynez Mountains to the other, and warm temperatures offering a respite from the cold weather still gripping much of the nation, Santa Barbara had become the WCLA’s featured gathering place to start the season.

But besieged from all sides, tournament founder and director Ramsey gave thought to the idea that perhaps, after 28 years, the time had come to put the event away. 

It was in the days following the cancellation of the 2017 Shootout, in the midst of handling an avalanche of phone calls from disgruntled coaches and parents, when one call convinced the beleaguered Ramsey to forge ahead.

“BYU coach Nikki Dabrowski called and said that everyone on her team had already voted to come back in 2018,” Ramsey said. “They understood that I was taking a lot of heat from coaches and she asked if I was okay. Because of Nikki, there is a Shootout in 2018.”

Dabrowski did not realize the impact of that phone call.

“We just knew how much work it took for Paul to put this event together, and that he was sad about how it turned out,” said Dabrowski, now in her third year as coach at her alma mater. She had participated in the Shootout during her playing career as well.

“We wanted him to know that we appreciated his efforts and that we fully supported him.”

Supportive phone calls in subsequent weeks from several other schools, including Western Washington and Colorado State, were also helpful.

“At that point, we were off and running,” Ramsey said. “Because of their influence, I would have run an eight-team tournament if that’s all we had.”

The 2018 tournament, with far more than eight teams, begins Friday and continues through Sunday.

Ramsey does note that last year’s disaster did force some changes, including a downsizing of the event in order to have greater flexibility for rescheduling if inclement weather does occur. 

The field size, which had grown to as many as 64 collegiate teams, was cut back to a max of 20 Division I teams and 16 Division II teams this year.

In addition, the high school division that traditionally ran alongside the collegiate event, with as many as 24 teams, was moved to an alternate weekend.  

The Shootout also has a new home this year, the Santa Barbara Polo Club, a venue with better infrastructure to support a sizeable event. Additionally, Ramsey has added cancellation insurance as part of each team’s entry fee.

“If the worst were to happen again, we would be able to fully refund the entry fee to all teams,” he said. “Most teams last year understood we’d already spent quite a bit on fixed expenses, but some did not. This level of insurance eliminates the concern.”

To foster transparency, the Shootout’s official website now features a detailed breakdown of the expenses that Ramsey incurs to host the tournament, an unusual disclosure for any event operator. 

Despite the changes and Ramsey’s efforts to build new safeguards, there have been defectors. Several of the WCLA’s traditional heavyweights who had been loyal Santa Barbara attendees through the years are taking an alternate path this spring. Michigan, Pittsburgh, Georgia, Cal Poly, and others have committed to playing in UCLA’s inaugural Golden State Invitational, also this weekend. 

The fact that they are gathered just 90 miles down the coast seems rather intentional.

“Was this move somewhat reactionary to last year? In some way, yes,” said Pittsburgh coach Gary Neft. “There were a lot of upset people last year.”

“We started having discussions about the possibility of doing this immediately after Santa Barbara last year,” said Paige Lin, formerly the coach at UCLA. “But the timing is coincidental because of our men’s team.”

Officials at UCLA gave their approval for the new event last summer, but stipulated that it run simultaneously with the Pac-12 Shootout hosted annually by the school’s men’s club team. That event has always been on the same weekend as the Santa Barbara Shootout.

School administrators also asked Lin, who had already stepped down as UCLA’s coach at the conclusion of the 2017 season, if she would serve as the tournament director. 

“The aspiration is not to do another Santa Barbara Shootout,” Lin said. “This is not that type of an operation.”

In fact, despite having several of the WCLA’s headliners, the Golden State Invitational has just seven total participating teams. All of the games will be played on one lighted turf field on campus.  The commitment for all the parties beyond this year has yet to be determined.

“We only play four teams during the weekend, so it doesn’t really matter that there are 40 or 50 teams in Santa Barbara,” Neft said. “The logistics are a lot easier for us in going to Los Angeles.”

“Truthfully, the other teams were the driving force behind this because many of them were not interested in going back to Santa Barbara,” said Lin, “but they were all interested in playing games in California. Who wouldn’t be?”

For Michigan, the move to UCLA’s event was simply a matter of following the competition.

“We want to play the best teams, and preferably, the West Coast teams,” said Michigan coach David McKinnon. “Because of that, we really didn’t have a choice.”

So, jostling aside, as the 2018 WCLA season kicks into high gear this week, much of the scene will be no different than previous years.  Santa Barbara will once again serve as the epicenter, with 36 Division I and II teams (and four ‘B’ teams) gathered from many corners of the country for three days of competition, while Los Angeles debuts as a de facto satellite site for several of the nation’s other top programs.

In total, split between the two locations, 11 of the 16 Division I teams and six of the 12 Division II teams that qualified for last year’s WCLA National Tournament descend upon Southern California this weekend.

“Even if the Shootout doesn’t ever get back to being a preview of the National Tournament’s semifinal games, hopefully, it will still be a great place for all the other WCLA teams,” Ramsey said. “Our goal will be to give them a National Tournament level experience.”

The WCLA features 80 Division I teams and 153 Division II teams that compete under the US Lacrosse umbrella. The 2018 season will conclude with the D-I and D-II national championships in Round Rock, Texas, May 9-12.