Goal15

I think this is the case of not playing a tough enough schedule. I know they came out of a brutal region, but how often had they even been behind this year? When you play a tough schedule (more than just a handful of tough games), you won't always be on top of your game, so you will find yourself in situations that will present themselves in the postseason (like being down early against a good team and finding a way to fight back and win). It's best to figure out how your team responds in those situations during the regular season, and then learn from them. Not to try to figure it out when it matters most. And to clarify, I did not see this game. Just basing this off Collegiate's schedule, comments on here, and comments in the various news articles.

I think this is the case of not playing a tough enough schedule. I know they came out of a brutal region, but how often had they even been behind this year? When you play a tough schedule (more than just a handful of tough games), you won't always be on top of your game, so you will find yourself in situations that will present themselves in the postseason (like being down early against a good team and finding a way to fight back and win). It's best to figure out how your team responds in those situations during the regular season, and then learn from them. Not to figure out when it matters most. And to clarify, I did not see this game. Just basing this off Collegiate's schedule, comments on here, and comments in the various news articles.

Agree with the above, but these "showcase" fees are getting ridiculous. Looking at $1000 and up for a lot of the better showcases these days when most kids are not getting their money's worth out of it. Competition usually is pretty good, but I don't understand why showcases have to be so high. Once you are playing high school aged club (especially now with the age group changes) most of your "tournaments" will probably be showcases along with your state tournament.

This is true, but I think we have more depth now with more kids playing club. It has made things thinner at the top though.

Well not really. Rec is rec, and always will be. The coaching/training has never been very good for rec soccer. That level will always be the same. You can have some better competition if some of those kids chose rec instead of club, but my argument would be those kids would develop at a much higher rate playing club (even at a low level) than they would on a rec team. Cost is definitely a problem. Not arguing that at all. Part of that is how much tournaments are costing these days though. But the majority of kids do develop at a higher rate on a club team than on a rec team. I don't think that is very debatable.

Not sure what your point is. I agree club costs are way too high, and a lot of club soccer is not very high level. But there is still a HUGE difference between low level club and recreational soccer. Majority of the kids who play club at any level get significantly better during their high school careers. Not so much for rec players.

Ok, but what are you classifying as "competitive" soccer. The majority of the club soccer I see around KY is not very high level, but it is still expensive. So you have families paying $1000/season for mediocre soccer but their kid hardly plays? I wouldn't agree with that. At the elite levels, ok. But to be honest, there are no elite levels in KY.

Yeah but development is not really a focal point of high school soccer. The way the season is structured doesn't really allow it. Sub limitations make little sense to me at the youth level except at real elite levels of play (ie DAs). Otherwise I don't get it. Kids want to play (and should) and substitution rules mean more kids play less.

This is true. But makes for some awful semi-state and Elite 8 games. I understand what KHSAA wants, but still think it can be tweaked to minimize blowouts or mercy rule games that deep into the state tournament.

4 top 20 in Region 11, in addition to Woodford County who is a top 10 team but has been battling a ton of injuries down the stretch. If they can get healthy they are as good as anyone in that region. And Henry Clay who has played a very difficult schedule.

I think anything would be more interesting than what we have now.

Maybe this is the case in NKY but not necessarily in other parts of the state. Are most U15 teams playing a fall season? Definitely not the case south of you guys, so 8th graders who are 02s have no team to play on unless they just want to guest with a U14 team. I see most of the U15 teams in KSSL are actually 03 teams. I am guessing they have some 02s playing with them just for the fall season. That is an option, but if you can't play with your actual club team why not just play full time with the school you are going to go to instead of guesting with some random team?

I see what you are saying but don't necessarily agree (and I guess I am wrong). First, with the age group changes you will have 8th graders who have no team to play on in the fall. They are in effect full time high school players now. I think they should be treated just like freshmen. I agree no school should cut a freshman FOR a middle school player, but what if a freshman was going to get cut anyways whether or not you were picking up middle school players? So say without middle schoolers you might have 18 on the roster, but with a few middle school players you now have 20 or 21. I really don't think a program should deny the opportunity for these 7th or 8th graders to play when a freshman wouldn't have made a team anyways. Like I said, I understand what you are saying, and I agree in principle. But I don't think it is universally practical.

Probably more of a coincidence.

That does not look very accurate. I think Maher is pretty accurate. There is always room for debate, but in the end Maher gets it as close as anything.

I haven't gone through this with a fine tooth comb, but movement in rankings aren't based on just what one team has done. It is also based on what other teams do. So maybe other teams moving up or down affected Ballard.

High road? Or overreacting road as they usually do? See post game handshakes. Total overreaction. Punishment should fit the crime, as it is now all crimes are the same, which makes no sense (and it is not consistent across other sports). 2 games for two yellows, or even 2 games for DOGSO is ridiculous, especially when you have card happy officials. It would not be hard to create a few categories for cards to be differentiated. I like a yellow card accumulation, but if they can keep track of that and enforce it, they can differentiate red cards.

Which is dumb.

Haha TAC, well in the first state wide coaches poll, I think they had like 17 coaches vote, so a little more than 5. :jump:

Maher rankings are based on math. It has nothing to do with an eye test. The Coaches Poll is a guess for a lot of coaches. It's impossible to see teams in every part of the state, but you can usually use some score line comparison to make an educated guess.

Top 10 match up tonight: #6 Lafayette at #9 Mercer County

Yes why are we combining KY and Ohio rankings? That makes zero sense. I know nothing about Ohio high school soccer, and I don't care about it, nor do I care where KY schools stack up with them. I am sure the same can be said for the most part on the other side. If you are going to keep the rankings combined, you need to at least have a column which indicates the state rank in addition to their overall rank. Now I have to manually count teams just to see where a team ranks within KY. Or give us an option to filter out KY or OH teams to see a true state ranking.

Sheesh man settle down. I didn't blame the referees. But the referees are technically the ones who blow the whistle to start and stop the games, whether they made that decision or someone else did. I will blame them for not communicating to coaches when games were to be shortened. And for not showing up on time to games and then shortening games with no warning. Heat index was interesting this year. Ended one game immediately when there was plenty of time to see if the heat index would decrease. Then started the next set of games when heat index didn't seem to change. With some more creative scheduling I bet BGSG could avoid peak heat index times of the day.

I have no idea if that came from the tournament coordinator or the referees. I will say this year was better.

Referees cutting games short. Limited water supply. Poor (or no) communication to schools/coaches. No shirts. Minimal sponsors.