itsagame

Scott County beat Mercy 1-0 in 9 innings in the opening game.

Reported from Owensboro.

What issue? You play where you get bracketed; that is the way it has always been and always will be. What drama? The drama is right here, all of those trying to figure out ridiculous ways to "make it fair". It is as fair as it can be by random draw. Talk about making it "not fair" would be considering allowing the coaches to vote to seed the pairings or trying to seed by last year's achievements. At least if they did a same day drawing, it would eliminate two weeks of drama especially the last few days before the games begin. May the best team win.

After thinking it over and considering every team plays on Thursday night (either the early game or late game), it may be better to have a coaches meeting about noon and draw the names from a hat instead of drawing a couple of weeks in advance per region. That would reduce a lot of the drama for players, coaches and fans.

Can't believe that anyone would suggest that this type of objectivity bracketing would work? Really, rely on the coaches to rate team for seeding? Just the 16 coaches in the tournament or all coaches? The 10th did not finish until Sunday, going to get all the coaches' votes in on Monday for a tournament that starts on Thursday? Most coaches would not have even seen over half of the teams in the tournament and if so, just a time or two. A blind draw per region well in advance is the ONLY way to bracket the tournament. Coaches have a couple of weeks to scout the best teams in the region that they may play if both teams were to make it to the dance. It's too bad that the best teams have to play each other but "at this point what difference does it make". All this "fairness" talk is silliness. Just play the game; the purpose of the tournament is to crown a state champion, not to promote "fairness" from start to finish. Not to mention the complexity of seeding the state tournaments for the other sports as well.

Interesting dynamics between coaching styles. One coach was relaxed and motived with positive enthusiasm; the other was uptight and motived with negative gestures and intimidation.

At Montgomery Co. Monday 11:00-Bracken County/Montgomery County 1:00-Bishop Brossart/Nicholas County 3:00-Harrison County/Campbell County 5:00-George Rogers Clark/Mason County Tuesday 5:30-winners of 11:00 & 1:00 7:30-winners of 3:00 & 5:00 Wednesday 6:30 Championship

The winner of the Scott County/Woodford County game whether it be in the semis or finals will go to state. These two teams are far ahead of the rest of the field when it comes to W/L, strength of schedule and consistency. I do not see how PL Dunbar field will hold the attendance for this game. Don't know enough players to name a top 10.

Heard Kent Miller at LCA

George Rogers Clark 1-Montgomery 0 in Regional championship game Tournament team ranking based on W/L & strength of schedule 1-George Rogers Clark 2-Montgomery County 3-Harrison County 4-Bishop Brossart 5-Campbell County 6-Nicholas County 7-Mason County 8-Bracken County

Just following the information on this tread, it looks to me like they did have contingency plans. Drop it from pool play to double-elimination; implement a time limit; drop it to single elimination and keep one field playable so the winners bracket could be completed and crown a champion. The mistake that I see if making it a pool play tournament to begin with. The smaller schools should not be expected to bring lesser skill levels. It should have been double-elimination to start with like the KHSAA state tournament and not nearly as much change and confusion would have been necessary due to the weather. Since the undesirable weather had been forecast all week long, maybe teams should have mentally prepared their players that rainy weather may cause delays, schedule changes and undesirable results for the weekend to minimize the disappointments of a weekend gone awry. After all, it was a great accomplishment to quality for the opportunity to play in the All-A state tournament even though your chances to win got washed out. And, if it was thundering, someone should have spoken up and insisted that they clear the field per KHSAA thunder/lightning rule. Otherwise, all are complicit and wanted the games to continue.

LCA open?

You're right; my bad!

Football/soccer start out in the warm weather and end in the cold so there would be no benefit to postponing the games since the weather is most likely going to get worse instead of better. In Baseball/softball, there are warmer days ahead and the games can be rescheduled later in the season. And, in those two other sports, players are not trying to hit and catch a hard ball coming at them at high speeds. Football and soccer are considered to be played in all kinds of weather where baseball/softball are considered warm weather sports.

It seems logical that since they have a heat index factor to stop play, there ought to be a cold index factor as well. The heat index as I understand it is based on a combination of temperature and relative humidity and is deemed unsafe somewhere around 104 degrees. The cold weather guideline in my opinion ought to be based on the wind chill factor; if the wind chill is below freezing, baseball & softball games should be cancelled (and that is still too cold). I really see no benefit on behalf of the players to be playing baseball/softball in extreme cold, windy and/or rainy conditions. Football/soccer yes, baseball/softball no.

PLAY BALL!!! What a difference 12 days can make.

Clyde, everybody knows when the team switch sides they get the opposite official (sarcasm); lol!!! That comment, among others shows how little these people know about officiating. Birdbrain, nice efforts to offer thoughtful reasoning but, you can lead a donkey to water but you can't make it drink!

I would not call it backtracking. As RCC stated, you could always scrimmage up to your first game. It was a simple misunderstanding; nothing negative to dig at here.

A clarification is the process of correcting a misinterpretation. Post # 3 is a clarification, in Mr. Bilberry's exact words, to correct post #1 .

Clarification:If they have not played an officially sanctioned game yet, they can still scrimmage. Once they actually play a game then they can longer scrimmage. So just to clarify, the season does not start in this regard until they actually play a game.

The "younger" generator is not willing to take the abuse; it is not worth the time, travel or money to them. The majority of officials are 50+ years old and getting older each year. KHSAA and assignors can only provide training to a minimal extent; how exactly do you train officials for a fast paced, physical, never know what is about to happen sport? The only real training is experience. They have instant reply in professional sports and sometimes cannot get it right. What degree of perfection do you people really expect from high school officials? You crybabies are the main reason there is a shortage of officials.

Opening Day is a week from today!:taz::taz:

Most of the umps that need training will not go to the camp because they are inexperienced and know they will not be working region or state tournaments. Very few inexperienced umps will go just to learn about umpiring; most of those who do go will have tons of experience and only be going because it is a requirement to be eligible to work the tournaments.

Nice payday for KHSAA; another expense and full day investment for underpaid umps.

Assigners go to great lengths to make training available to their refs; they have meeting, clinics and on site evaluations (not with a beer at a bar either). I really do not know how you would provide training to such a large amount of people from vastly different areas, experience and background for a game that varies each and every night, or more precisely each and every play. You cannot simulate an actual ball game in a training session; or actually they do when the refs are required to work a camp under the supervision of assigners and their best evaluators. Experience and on-the-job training is the best way to learn the profession. When you break it down, refs do not make much money unless they work 6 games a week. They are required to be on site for varsity games an hour early, have to drive an hour to get to the game, work an hour and a half game and drive an hour home. So they have to invest an average of 4-5 hours per game for $70 which when you add gas, wear and tear on your vehicle and an on the road meal, they are making about $10-$15 per hour. In addition to that, they have to buy uniforms, pay fees to register with the KHSAA and their ref association, and bear the cost of attending training meetings/clinics for no pay. I am really surprised that enough refs can be found to work all of the games being played from AAU, youth leagues, middle school, high school (Fresh, JV & V; boys & girls), adult league and several levels of college. I have not even mentioned the nightly abuse taken from coaches, players and fans that they are supposed to completely block out or they are a bad ref. There are a lot of Sparky Andersons out there. Most refs work several nights a week to make it financially worthwhile after working their day jobs. Working a day job and a night job several nights a week sure does not leave much time to be with your family and getting home after 11:00 does not make it very easy to get up the next morning to be at your day job on time, ready to have a good work day. Refs make tremendous sacrifices to be refs; it is much more than showing up to ref a ball game on a Tuesday night. You must be extremely dedicated and at your best at all times. No one makes a living at working high school basketball. I have been there, done it and will never do it again. It seems to me that a reasonable person ought to appreciate the efforts of the refs to try to officiate a subjective sport that is impossible to do correctly to the biased coach, player or fan. One person said it best, a bad game makes for bad refs. Next time you see a ref, thank him/her for being a ref and having the guts to put themselves out there to be abused whenever they are less than perfect.