gameplayedright

Some current facts about both that will go into my thought process when making my prediction. Current Maher rankings/Strength of Schedule (SoS) Cooper #19/SoS 85 St Henry #29/SoS 586 (can't make that up, 586) W-L-T and goals for/against Cooper 2-2-2, goals for 7 /6 against St Henry 4-3-1, goals for 20/9 against. I believe these 20 goals for are highly inflated due to 17 of them against very weak opponents, i.e SoS 586. Mutual opponents Vs HHS Vs NCC Cooper T 0-0 W 3-0 St Henry L 0-1 L 2-3 Obviously St Henry will be looking to redeem themselves from the huge upset loss in last season's 9th Regionals. But the stats confirm Cooper has played a much, much tougher schedule and may have just a bit more quality in key areas. Prediction Cooper 3- St Henry 2 Crowd, 700 plus!!! The unknown element, weather, will it play a factor?

Per YC's request, wait for it…

I may have misunderstood your point, but to clarify. I'm in NO way blaming CCH for this schedule, I put it on HHS. And I'm only saying this out of respect for ALL HS players. IMO they work their tails off and deserve as many supporters, students, parents, grandparents, friends, etc, at the games. Players LOVE a huge crowd, for and against, the least the supporters can do is show up and cheer. But its harder to do when the home team schedules a home match when the the other gender's soccer team is playing the same night on the road. Maybe try this on for size ADs, schedule a girls and boys varsity double header match on a Saturday night, 6:30 and 8PM kickoffs, will bring in a HUGE crowd! Sure you may loose a little revenue since it will be a 2 for 1 but my guess is the gate not suffer much due to the huge crowd.

Score surprises me, heard so much about how good Simon Kenton is, player of the year, etc, etc. Based on results up to this point in the season, it is looking more and more like a two horse race for the 9th region, NDA and HHS. NDA @ HHS September 27 at 8PM could be a classic. Unfortunately HHS boys travel to MOCO and CCH plays at 7 Hills the same night, obviously killing the crowd absolutely horrible scheduling on someone's part. All HS players deserve a huge crowd of supporters at their games, its real shame bad scheduling will prevent this from happening for this much anticipated game.

No doubt offensively it's a huge struggle. Way to much individual dribbling, taking on 3-4 defenders, playing into pressure, very little to no combination play, no sharing the ball, etc, etc. Very easy team to defend at right now. Would expect Stava to return very soon, he will be a very welcomed addition that will certainly help. Defensively last night…only comment, you had to be there to see it for yourself.

Anyone can view any team's schedule on the khsaa site to see and judge (strength of schedule) for themselves. Many nky teams have traveled (spent money) to tournaments without those opponents traveling to nky.

justwondering1's team from the west side of the state is perfect example of what it takes to put your program into position to build a strong, competitive schedule and in a position to play the elite teams. I'm not necessarily buying the cost factor or the home and away agreement is what limits some teams from playing a stronger schedule. The NKY teams that I see playing a weak schedule already travel (spending the money to travel) and play some games away without every opponent traveling to their venue the following season.

I would not consider Summit, Anderson, Elder, Walnut Hills, 7 Hills, etc expensive travel games for them to play NKY teams. And maybe the OH coaches are not in favor of bringing their jv teams to KY, but these OH schools and a few more have brought their jv teams to Park Hills for years. Trinity does not appear to have any cost issues coming up to Park Hills. And just a thought, if a school really wanted to build a stronger schedule they might have to agree to an away, away series for a few yrs to build a reputation your program can give the elite teams a game.

I would also assume its easier to get the top teams such as Summit, Anderson, Trinity, etc on your schedule when you are defending state champs, but CCH has been putting this kind of difficult schedule together for years. I scratch my head when I look at a few other NKY teams' schedules and question the number of really weak, non district teams on their schedule. I'm not going to start a firestorm and name these teams, anyone can look for themselves. I can only come up with a couple of reason for scheduling a number of historically weak, non district opponents, padding the W-L-T record and to pad the individual stat sheet. Maybe someone can suggest other reasons for putting together a very weak schedule by some of the typical stronger programs in NKY. The Labor break is a great time, pretty much in the middle of the season, to allow your players some much needed time off.

Be careful what you wish for. There is no replacing good technical training/technical skills. i.e watch the USMNT. Even at this level the lack of technically skilled players hurt big time. The US players struggles to play under pressure, struggle to keep the ball. And it's my guess the USMNT spends a good amount of time on tactical training. I once heard a great soccer coach ask his students, "what is the most important part of a corner kick play?" He received all kinds of answers, you need to have your players line up this way, time their runs correctly, etc. The great coach said, "you must have a great ball served into the box, which requires good technique. You can spend all of your training session on teaching your players where to line up, where to run to and when but if the player taking the corner kick does not have the technical skills to serve a good ball, everything else is a waste of time."

At the end of season (or a couple of weeks) it looks like strength of schedule will not even be close, probably not a team in NKY comes anywhere close to playing CCH's strength of schedule. #2 (in Cincy) Summit. @#4 Trinity @ #8 ( in Cincy) Anderson #8 Madison Central @#11 (in Cincy) Elder @ #14 Ballard @ #16 Highlands #19 Cooper @ #20 Ryle @ #24 (in Cincy) 7 Hills @ #25 (in Cincy) Walnut Hills @ # 27 (in Cincy) McNicholas

My understanding on how the Maher ranking system works, its all based on feeding results into system. Coaches opinion/voting, etc have no effect. Region 9 teams need to play a tougher schedule and get better results. Do these two things and region 9 teams will move up. One of the changes made this season, factoring in game results played between KY and OH teams has been over due, welcomed, and having an effect on the rankings. Certainly you can argue how the system is set up, accept it or come up with your own ranking system.

One goal by each team, both caused by defensive miscues... sounds like (not sure wasn't there) this may have been a bit boring, a game played between the 18s? Says nothing about the teams it just happens sometimes where both teams struggle to generate any real threat.

!!!!!!!

What about the game, entertaining? Fair result? Two of the top teams in the 9th region play each other and the morning after this game there are still no comments regarding the action on the field.

There must be more to this story.BK missing some key players due to injuries, retreat, something?

Allow me to expand on my surprising and confusing comments. I've seen both teams play and based on results to date I was "surprised" by this result. As I mentioned I thought Cooper would have no problems with Simon Kenton. "Confusing" comment is in part directed at the game summary provided by kysoccer. Maybe I misread it but it sounds like Simon Kenton dominated the first half, Cooper has a free kick goal over turned but Simon Kenton's technical players give them the edge in the match. I had a difficult time getting a sense (confused) of how the game went based on these comments. Nothing against kysoccer's post, probably just me not understanding his explanation. So it is safe to say Cooper being short handed played a role in the outcome? Who was missing ("short bench, I believe only 4 subs") and any estimation on how long they will be sidelined?

This is a surprising and a bit confusing result, figured Cooper would have no problem in this one. Simon Kenton has had problems with good teams and Cooper was starting to look like a 9th region contender. Simon Kenton has HHS and NCC next, winnable games? Cooper has two interesting match ups, St Henry and Ryle sandwiched between two easy games. These games should define these two a bit more.

Should be a good one, Ryle 2 - St Henry 1

Big road win for #10 Oldham Co over host #4 Woodford Co. Oldham Co 2 - Woodford Co 1 Can anyone provide details?

Nice to see a local paper do a story on HS soccer. Congrats ASnow! Would not be surprised to see more NKY players wind up at Evansville. Not unusual for a college program to recruit the same area their recent recruits came from.

On paper by far the best game of the day, a day that will likely have many blowouts. #4 Woodford Co host #10 Oldham Co. Thoughts, predictions?

Agree with OTB84. IMO way to many teams (that should not be) play a very weak schedule.