Dual Meet Set Up Information
Dual Meets are set up using the Pairings software program. The program takes as input text files (.csv) that contain a list of each team's wrestlers, one-wrestler per-line, in the following format:
First Name, Last Name, Weight, Birth date, Experience, Skill
Weight
Please verify your childs weight using a quality scale. (Parents rarely know how much their kids weigh.) Try to weigh each child routinely through the season to avoid erroneous weights in our roster.
Birth date
The program is designed to select opponents based on their age so it is critical that we have the child’s actual date of birth to assure the accuracy of the matches.
Experience
0 First Year Wrestler (Did not practice or compete last season)
1 Second Year Wrestler (1 year of experience)
2 Third Year Wrestler (2 years of experience)
Skill definitions
0 = First Year Wrestler, Average or Below
1 = Limited Skills/Abilities Relative to Age/Weight
2 = Competitive in Novice Tournaments (wins matches but does not place)
3 = Consistently Places in Novice Tournaments (First, Second or Third)
4 = Consistently Places in Open Tournaments (First, second or third)
5 = Competitive in MAWA Regional and National Competition (all EN Qualifiers)
Note – Wrestlers who do not participate in tournaments should be rated in comparison to other wrestlers who do.
Pairings Program
Press the following link to download the "Pairings" program in a compressed zip format.
Pairings Program Down Load
A file download box will appear - Press "Open"
A WinZip file will open - Press the Extract button at the top.
An Extract Dialog Box will appear:
1) Press the "All files/folders in archive" radio button in the files sub menu.
2) Select/create a folder on the C drive of the computer to extract the files to. (i.e. - C:\Program Files\Pairings)
3) Press the "Extract" button to proceed. At the Decrypt message box enter the case sensitive password "pairings" and press the OK button.
4) Close the win zip file.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the folder where the Pairings files were extracted to and double click on the "Pairings" Zip folder.
A "WinZip self extractor - pairings.exe" dialog box opens - Press Setup and follow the instructions to complete the installation.
Officiating - See Contact List information about scheduling officials for ICWL Dual Meets
Pairings Trouble Shooting
When you set up a dual or tri-meet it is important that you move the .CSV files for the visiting team(s) to your hard drive. After setting up the the meet when you press "Done" to close the program the Pairings program will save the .wrs, .txt and .xls file to the location where the visiting team(s) .CSV file(s) came from. If the visiting team .CSV files were in a location that cannot be written to the program will crash and all data will be lost.
Prior to doing the detailed match up it is advisable to save the set up and press "Done" to close the program and then re-open the existing file to be sure the program can be closed and opened without causing an error before going through and matching every wrestler.
If you try to reopen an existing meet and you get a "Run-Time Error - 13: Type Mismatch" the most likely cause is bad data in one of the .CSV files. To determine if there is bad data open each of the .CSV files using the Microsoft Notepad program. The data will be displayed as follows in coma deliminated format and it will be easy to see if the data does not conform with the correct format.
BRIAN,ACER,45,2/2/2004,0,0
TOMMY,AMOS,180,1/28/2002,0,0
JOSEPH,ATTWOOD,83,10/7/1997,0,0
TOMMY,BRECK,41,12/6/2003,0,0
DANNY,BREEZE,57,1/25/2001,0,0
FRANCIS,CASEY,67,7/25/1997,1,1
Some of the common data errors include a blank row at the bottom ",,,,," or the date format may be corrupted if the excel spread sheet used to construct the .CSV file changed the date to an incompatible format like date with time.
If you do not have an accurate birthdate do not put in todays date, the computed age will be zero and could cause the program to crash.
Wrestler Not Attending Function - The program provides the ability to remove a wrestler from the current dual meet by right clicking on the wrestler and pressing "John Doe Not Attending". If you try to remove the last wrestler in the list the program will crash. Leave the last wrestler in the list and just don't schedule any matches for him.
Saving Errors:
When you press the save button the .wrs file is updated with any changes that you have made since the last time you pressed save (or done). The excel files are not updated when you press save, they are only updated whey you press done. When you press “Done” for the second, third or fourth time on the same meet you will receive a message that the file exists and is it OK to over write? When you press OK the Pairings program will update the Excel file and save it over the older version.
It is critical that the Pairings program can save the Excel file to your hard drive when you press “Done” or the program will crash. On rare occasions the Pairings program will create an Excel file that is saved to the hard drive as a read only file or there is a problem closing Excel. When this occurs you will not get the “OK to overwrite message” the program will just crash and give you a “run-time error 91. (Object variable or with block variable not set)” message. You will generally not lose your set up as long as you saved before you press “Done” so you can reopen the dual meet without losing your matches but you still will not be able to create your Excel files for the meet. To correct the problem navigate to the folder where the Excel file is and either rename it or delete it so the Pairings program has a way to save without colliding with an Excel file that is read only.
If you are unable to delete the file and get a note that the file cannot be deleted because the file is in use when the file is not open then there was a problem with how Excel closed. This can be solved by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete to get to the windows task manager. Press the “Processes” tab and scroll down to the “EXCEL.COM” program and select it. “EXCEL.COM” will be shown grayed then press the “End Process” button to force Excel to close. You will get a “Task Manager Warning” pop up box that: “Terminating a process can cause undesired results .....” It is OK, Excel is not required by windows and the process will restart as soon as you open an excel file.
Note: the same error will occur if you press “Done” while the excel file for this meet is opened.
Once the Excel file is deleted you should be able to reopen the “Pairings” .wrs file and then press “Save” & “Done” and a new Excel file will be created. To verify that the problem is corrected Re-Open the Pairings file and press done again. This time you will get a pop up that the file exists and is it OK to over write? Press yes and the file should save correctly this time and close the program without the “run-time error 91”.
