Now that we have the first round of the Illinois girls soccer playoffs out of the way…. Anyone have a favorite? A sleeper? The Aurora (East) Sectional is a beast while some others look to be pretty weak. I’m guessing that’s because they do it geographically, but come on….
Metea is undefeated for 2 years so they have to be the favorite but they do have the toughest path. Barrington, Lyons, Lincoln Way Central and St. Charles seem to be the other top contenders. York, Fremd and Edwardsville could be dark horses. Benet is probably the favorite for 2A.
You're right about Metea... They have to be the favorite. They should win their second round game pretty easily, but it gets very difficult for them after that. Lincoln Way Central will have a pretty easy time in that sectional. Its crazy how weak it is compared to the others. I'm from southwest, so those are the two I know best. My darkhorse is probably Lockport. Even though they got put in with the Naperville/Aurora/Plainfield schools. I'd agree Benet should be the favorite in 2A. They'd probably be competitive in 3A.
Lockport is very good too. Lots of Chicago Inter players. I am not sure how it works as Benet was in 3A two years ago and made it to the sectional final and then were put back down in 2A. I would think they would petition to play in the highest division like some of the teams do for football and basketball.
A friend of mine, who's kid plays for Benet, told me that since they made the 2A state final in 2022, they'll move up to 3A in 2024. I'm not really sure why they would wait a year. Espeically since the team could be completely different by then.
I just looked it up... The wait is because the IHSA only reclassifies schools/sports every two years. The next classification list will come out this June. Two-Year Cycle Enrollments and Classifications (ihsa.org)
We were by far the best kickball team in the State! Our ability to utilize rec players over travel players, freshman over seniors - those who could really line up and smash a ball down the field was second to none. Of course with the occassional twisty ball-bashes that required a settle but hey - who cares, can't win them all right? All season our coach refused to speak with the freshman back up keeper - insisting in speaking through the senior keeper only - WTF? Our regionial games he brought up 2 JV players who played more then any player on the bench as well as some top players - again WTF? Our last game we were down 1-5 with 20 to go. One would think he'd throw in our 3rd senior who got less then 15 minutes all season. But he did not - just sat there in shock that a 1-1 got away to a 1-6 loss over the span of 30 minutes in the second half. I've never seen such a useless coach in my life! When my ex-wife brought up the 3rd senior (mentioned above). I nearly had to leave - I was so pissed off and that's not even my kid!
Even as far as HighSchool coaches go, this is pretty stupid. My take on HighSchool coaches is this.. The vast majority of them have no real Soccer Coaching background. Add to that, the fact that they're given a group of kids with widely varying backgrounds, and no time to get everyone on the same page. So they coach what they understand, which is Kickball. Kickball is easy to understand. Kick it far out of your own end, and let your biggest fastest kids go win the second ball. Then swing for the home-run every time. It's all 50 yard through balls to kids making dead-straight runs. That, and 40 yard shots. You do it 100 times a game and guess what?? It works 2 times and you win the game. So clearly it's a sound strategy. Right?? This year, at my kid's school, the coach lucked into a pretty talented roster. He has no idea what to do with it. So, he yells at them to do all the Kickball-iest Kickball things. It gets worse in the playoffs because Kickball is his security blanket... When the going gets tough, do what you know... So he plays the big, physical kids and yells stupid things at everyone. I've been saying all year... If our coaches would stop coaching right now, (or let the assistant coach take over) we'd win state. I really do believe that.