We just got home from my daughter's final game of the season. They won Districts (first time in two years at least), won one game in Regionals (first time since 2016), and lost to the #3 team in the state 2-0. She plays GK, so it was a stressful night. She's a sophomore. I'm still coming to terms with my son's team losing Monday night. They won Districts (first time in four years), and lost in the opening round of regionals in 2OT to a team they beat 8-0 three weeks previously. Yes, we looked past them. The other team tied it on a PK with 2:30 left in regulation and scored on a great shot with 1:30 left in 2OT. That quick, his HS Soccer season was over (he's a Senior). This team was supposed to go far in playoffs. Now we start the hunt for a college to play at. Anyone know of a team looking for a CB?
It always sucks when a season ends unexpectedly. My older son's team a few years back had a similar situation - losing in an early round to a team they had easily beaten a few weeks earlier. It was also in OT, which makes it even worse. Our playoffs don't start until Tuesday. My son's team has yet to win a playoff game in his first two years at the school, but (on paper) they should win their first round game next week. Unfortunately, they then will get the #10 team in the state, who they lost to earlier in the year 7-0. Our playoffs are one-and-done, so our season likely comes to an end next Saturday.
A smaller local HS that has a few kids my son has played club with over the years lost its playoff opener on PKs this week to a smalltown team that I'd bet has zero club players (a 6 seed beating a 1 seed). Has to be brutal. The losing team was undefeated until a couple of weeks ago and a couple of the parents I know thought they'd make a deep playoff run. My son's team opens its playoffs next week against a much weaker rival, but one that tied them a couple of weeks back. Hoping the coach trots out his best cliches for this one and reminds them repeatedly to worry about one game at a time.
My son's HS career ended in disappointing fashion. His senior year was the first year for a coach who had returned after an almost 20 year absence from the school (!) to try and turn things around; he didn't know the player pool at all (the old coach and assistants were gone; there was nobody to give him a head's up on who could do what) so he had to figure it all out from scratch. He finally did, and after a bad start they started to put it together. The coach was still tinkering with the lineup/formation right up to the end of the season (he had close to 30 players plus a JV squad to pull from; can't blame him for that) and by the time the playoffs started he seemed to have figured it out. But in the first round they came up against a team that was full of big, athletic players who defended hard and...didn't do much else. My son's team outplayed them all through regulation but couldn't get a goal--that still-newish lineup was promising, but they weren't clicking quite well enough to break down a strong defense made of up of bigger, more athletic kids. The team was from a different district, so my son's team didn't know them at all. I'm sure if they'd played them earlier in the season, they would have figure it out. Sadly, in OT the other team got a lucky bounce on a long throw-in, and that was the game. It was a real shame--if that coach had been given one more month with that team, they would have been much more formidable. And I should point out--this was five and a half years ago, and I still remember it. So, yeah, I really do know how you feel.
If I didn't know any better, I'd say you described our team (except it's a large HS). Not only undefeated going into the game (18-0-2 *One of the ties was eventually converted to a win when the other team realized they used an ineligible player), but we had outscored opponents 110-9. That's not a typo. The Soccer Gods weren't smiling on us. A couple of "questionable" calls: * Opposing GK makes a stop right on the line and is turning into the goal. Unfortunately his back was to the AR, so he couldn't say for sure if the ball had crossed the line. * We get (correctly) called for a foul, but in my view, the foul happened about 25 yards from goal, between the side of the PA and the sideline. Attacker kept dribbling to close to the middle of the field before finally falling to the ground. CR puts the ball where the guy fell, not where the foul actually happened. Attacker converted into the upper 90 (great shot). Just don't know if he would have made the shot if it was at more of an angle. * Our attacker is dribbling toward the goal line, gets right inside (looked like it to me live and going back to video even looks like it there) the box and is fouled. CR calls the foul, confers with the AR, then puts the ball for the FK literally on the corner of the PA. Now, I get it. I'm biased. The refs were responding to what they saw. And I'm not saying they cost us the game. We were not on point all night. Although we were up 2-1 with 2:35 left in regulation when we committed a handling foul in the box and they converted. Still just frustrating. If you want to watch a frustrating game, here's the link: . We're the home team.
That's tough. The game I described was frustrating because the other team really weren't playing soccer; beyond the sort of clumsy-but-'athletic' defending that the HS game (and HS refs) tend to foster/tolerate, their only strategy was long throw ins. Like they watched highlights of Roy Delap that season with Stoke City and thought "THAT'S the ticket!" and went all-in. They did it over and over and over again. They had a kid who could chuck it into the box from an impressive distance, so anytime they got a throw-in in the final third, they'd load up the 6 yard box with 7-8 players, kept one or two a little further out, and then that same kid tossed it into the mix and hoped for a lucky bounce. It was overtime before they finally got it. My son's team should've had a goal or two by that point, mind you, but it was still a disheartening way for it all to end--the team that was playing real soccer lost to a team that couldn't be bothered to try. It is indeed sometimes a cruel game.
Unfortunately, that's HS soccer for you. It's not pretty most of the time and coaches have to work with what they have in order to try to win games. From a pure soccer standpoint, that's why I like club soccer so much more. Not that they're not trying to win every game that they can, but most clubs that we've been a part of don't sacrifice the quality of the game just to win. That being said, our team does the same thing on those long throw ins and I hate it. In fact, my son hates it too, but doesn't have much say in it. Like you said, the only way you really score off those is if you can get a lucky bounce or two. My son's team scored a header off one of those throws for the first time in three years last week, and that was only because we were playing a pretty poor team (and goalie). You generally can't get any real pace on a header off of a lofted throw in and it's really hard to put those deep throws "on a rope", so to speak. Our team gets at least one more game. They won their first playoff game the other night (first one for the school in 5 years). Unfortunately, it earns us a trip to play the #11 ranked team in the state on Saturday, a team we've already lost to earlier in the year pretty handily. Who knows what can happen, though? Maybe we can pull off an upset.
That's a tough way to go out. Good luck to your son heading back to club and finding a landing spot for next year. My son's team won its opener fairly comfortably but next gets to face the top team in this area (ranked in the top 5 in the state all season), from the town next door (including a fair number of former club teammates and other kids he's played with and against a lot since he was pretty young). They've played twice this season, the first a tournament-final loss on PKs (11-10, with the keepers doing the last round) after leading until the final minute of regulation before giving up the equalizer on a tough non-call (with the benefit of video, it's easy to see the attacker crash through the keeper and knock the ball off of his hands before tapping it in -- live it happened so fast that it was easy to get wrong, I think). The second game was a tie that felt like a loss after my son's team went up 3-0 in the second half (punctuated by the opposing coach throwing a postgame fit in the local paper about refs repeatedly robbing his team, his team's superiority, ...). Lots of local drama in this one -- one of the other team's parents was out filming parts of my son's team's practices from just outside the fence around their field earlier this week. I'm not sure what he thought he might see, but have at it, pal. It'll be interesting.
And my son's season is done. 0-3 loss to the team he'd most like to beat. The team seemed to peak about a month ago and then fade after playing a bunch of games in short span -- I'm not sure if that's the reason they faded (some of the on-field connections really seemed to break down and teams started marking the biggest goal-scoring threat out of games), but those two things definitely coincided. On to club tryouts and, hopefully, a good winter and spring with the same group of players he's been with. The team is changing coaches, though, so no one knows what to expect. A word of unsolicited advice from an old soccer parent to anyone just getting going: Enjoy it all -- these seasons come and go in a hurry.
My son's junior year season is now over as well. They hung in there pretty tough on Saturday and it was actually only 0-1 with 20 minutes or so left in the 2nd half. Game ended 1-5, but was much closer than the score line indicates. For whatever reason, even after we had emptied our bench and made sure that every boy got to play, they still had most of their starters on the field, actually subbing back on their two top scorers after we cut the score to 1-4. I guess a 3-goal lead wasn't good enough.
A fair number of kids on my son's team didn't play in either of their two playoff games, including some seniors and a couple of kids who at different times over the season had been starters but finished the year nailed to the bench for mysterious reasons. I felt bad for that group -- it's easy for me to say, but I wish the coach had found a way to get them all out there (or at least get the seniors who didn't play much a little more time over the course of season -- the team played a fair number of blowouts in which starters were on the field deep into the game).
Our coach was great about getting everyone in during both playoff games, even the backup goalie. First game was a 9-0 blowout, so the bench played the vast majority of the second half. Saturday, most of the subs got in for about 10 minutes or so. Senior Day, he actually started all 11 seniors on the roster, which was pretty cool.
Our coach starts all the seniors on senior night also. Last year we had a senior who had been out all year recovering from ACL damage. Coach arranged with opposing team for us to take the opening KO and we'd immediately kick it out of bounds so the senior could start, then be immediately subbed without any true "game play". This year he subbed off all of our seniors one at a time in the second half so the announcer could call their names again. I thought that was a nice touch.
My older son's team one year (sophomore year, I believe) did the same thing with one of their seniors. Kid was one of their captains, but told his ACL in the spring state cup.
Those are both nice approaches -- well done to your coach. All of the seniors on my son's team (seven, I think, including a couple who were JV practice players who I assume the coach didn't want to cut for reasons I won't bore you with here) started on senior night and played quite a bit in that game, and picked up a lot of minutes in another blowout at the end of the regular season. At least one of the seldom-used kids scored, which was great. But some of the decisions to keep starters on the field in lopsided games over the season were head-scratchers. Again, though, it's easy for me to say that from the parent sideline.
Our d's team had the same thing happen as well. I definitely supported it especially since it was a good, hard-working kid who spent most of her senior season recovering on the IL. Their team was also well out of the running, so there was no question the seniors should play the bulk of the minutes, especially on senior night. That being said, would you all have thought differently if the team was still in the hunt for playoffs, and the seniors didn't form most of the strongest lineup?
The way it works in our state (Ohio), the playoff seeding is done a week or so ahead of time, so the last few games usually don't mean much for teams, so it's a good time to have different lineups like for Senior Night.
Works similarly in Illinois. I'm sure there's a reason behind it, but I'd really like to change that one. It takes the intensity out of the last couple of weeks or so.
I think it's mostly for logistical reasons. Home teams probably need a week or so to ensure that they've got the field for playoff games and in most cases, the last regular season game is only a couple days before the playoffs start.
It's the only system I know, but it seems to work pretty well in Ky. There are 16 regions in the state. Each region has multiple districts, and each district has between two and five schools (yes). Our district has four teams. One team is the "host" of the district tournament. Two of the schools don't have lights on their field, so the district tournament is held at one of the schools that has lights. You play (in our district) each team in the district during regular season to determine tournament seeding. 1v4, 2v3, winners in the championship. But you already know where & when the tournament is. Winner & runner up of each district advance to the region. Winner will play a runner up from another district. Teams from the same district will be put in opposite sides of the bracket so they can't face off again until the regional final. Semi final and final at an already designated school. Winners of the Regionals go to "semi-state". I think that's pre-determined what region plays which region and where, but I'm not positive. The state tournament is the eight teams still left with the semi's and final at a single host site. Our state final was Saturday. The winner of our region won state. I really had thought we were going to play them in the regional final. I'm still probably a month or so from "getting over" our early knockout.
Wow, that's a throwback to old-style state tournaments for basketball and baseball in a lot of places. Any "Hoosiers"-type giant-killers ever pop up from the smaller schools? There are a handful of small (mainly private or college-prep) schools around Illinois that field nice teams , but the solid teams from mid-size schools still seem to handle them fairly easily. I'd guess good teams from 3A, the largest classification, would probably drill even the best small-school teams. Unrelated, but fwiw, the local rival that knocked my son's team out of the playoffs is still going, one win away from the state tournament. While petty parents like me are still hoping they get knocked off, every win makes our kids look a little better, I guess.
Ohio is divided into 3 divisions for most sports including soccer (football has 7). I agree, the size really makes a difference. Our team, a D2 (mid-sized school) easily beat a couple D3 (small school) teams that are still alive in the playoffs, but we were easily beaten by a bigger school that lost early in the playoffs. The top schools in the largest division have JV teams that probably would have beaten our varsity