Georgia high school soccer

What’s the knock on the inner city public schools? Playing them is a total waste of time? How is that different from AU or Concorde beating AFC Lightning silly every time they play?

Better yet how is that different from Buford Girls beating Winder-Barrow, Central Gwinnett, Dacula and Shiloh 10-0? Or Buford Girls beating Cherokee Bluff 9-0? Those aren’t inner city schools but did they do any better?

I’ve attended some Atlanta high school soccer matches and I have been horrified with the “coaching” or lack thereof. Some coaches really don’t seem to even care and just collecting an extra check.

I’ve only seen one wealthy school play and it was Marist girls playing an Atlanta high school last week. I was not impressed and I’m sure it was all ECNL players.

Also note the majority of coaches schedule out of region varsity games for both the boys and girls on the same day, so while it may be a mismatch at 5:55 it could also be a good matchup at 8. I'm pretty sure we as parents don't want to drive an hour+ to a game you know is going to be 10-0 mercy in 50 minutes any more than the team receiving the mercy wants to absorb it, but it is a problem when the coaches (Both coaches have to accept it) keep scheduling those games knowing the mismatch beforehand.

Your point was clear when you made it. A point I’ve tried to make elsewhere.

High School soccer is not intended to get players/teams better.  Their purpose is to win games.

I enjoy watching kids play out of position. The left back for club ball might be an attacker midfielder for high school for example.
The keeper for club is a lone striker for high school.

hope scored 109 goals in high school and switched to keeper in college. (crazy)

Hmm… I’m confused by this statement. High school is not intended to get players/teams better, the purpose is to win games… how do you win games? You evaluate your team’s performance to determine weaknesses and practice those things in training, hence making the team BETTER…I’m also sorry if you are under the impression that coaches in “elite” club leagues are trying to do something besides win matches…

Also, if a team is trying to develop and get better and they don’t see competition it is hard to determine what the team needs to work on. I would take a competitive loss over winning every game 10-0 in a heartbeat. I can learn more about my team in a loss than a 10-0 win. The opponents losing 0-10 don’t get anything out of their coach telling them to bunker in their defensive 1/3, not ever attempting to advance. Neither team gets much out of a mercy rule match, no matter which side you are on.

Side note, with the ridiculous home/away schedule GHSA has set up, Buford will have to mercy rule these same teams again instead of being able to schedule more competitive matches.

I kind of feel sorry for you and anyone else that has had the experience that the "elite" clubs are only about winning.  That has not been our experience at all.

Speaking of the mercy rule in high school soccer, a friend sent me this from the Athens paper recently that I thought might fit into the discussion:

Commerce soccer's 21-0 win raises questions of sportsmanship, rewrites region's rulebook

A 21-0 victory two weeks ago by the Commerce girls soccer team has raised questions about integrity and sportsmanship and led to an amendment of Region 8-A Public's tiebreaker.



Updated rules close a loophole that many in the soccer community believe the Tigers exploited in order to score as many goals as possible to better position themselves should they finish tied in region standings.



The technicality in question came during a Feb. 21 game against Greene County, a team Commerce defeated 18-0 last year.



Prior to the recent amendment, goal differential in region games was the fifth of 10 possible tiebreakers used for playoff seeding while goals scored in all region games was the sixth.



The Georgia High School Association enforces a 'competitive imbalance' rule that shortens an 80-minute match when a score is lopsided. If a team leads by seven goals in the first 20 minutes of a game, halftime will occur automatically before playing a 20-minute second half.



When a team leads by 10 goals in the second half, the game is over.



However, if a lead is less than seven goals after 20 minutes, the first half will be completed in full.



Commerce admits to strategically keeping the score at 6-0 until the halfway mark of the first half before tallying 15 goals throughout the final 20 minutes. With Commerce leading by more than 10 goals at halftime, the game was deemed complete.


"You’ve got to (do that), unfortunately," said Commerce coach Scott Tolbert. "These are the rules that were given to us and you have to play by the rules. It was an unfortunate situation, but those were the rules. I don’t necessarily agree with them but they are what are. You have to play the hand that’s given to you."



The GHSA, in a statement to the Banner-Herald, said it had no immediate plans to amend its competitive imbalance rules to close the loophole.


The one-sided score upset many in the region, including Commerce's own principal William Smith, who met with Commerce coaches to find a solution.



"Once I saw the score," Smith said, "I sat down with both of my coaches and expressed (my concern about) sportsmanship, and if you coach long enough, you’re on both sides of that, so we made changes to where that will not happen again at Commerce."



Region 8-A Public amended its bylaws to cap goals scored at five per region game and added that a game is over whenever a team leads by 10 goals at any point in a match.



Only five goals from the 21-goal victory will be counted toward Commerce's total goals in region play if tiebreakers are needed at the end of the season.



Rewriting its rules in the middle of the year is a rare occurrence that only arises in extreme circumstances.



"It doesn't usually happen midseason, it’s very rare," said an Athens-area coach who asked to remain anonymous. "It was a pretty big oversight, in the beginning when setting these tiebreakers, not to include a cap on goals."



Eurosportscoreboard.com currently ranks Commerce No. 1 in Class A Public while region foes Social Circle (No. 2), Towns County (No. 5), Lake Oconee County (No. 6) and Lincoln County (No. 9) are also in the top 10.



Tolbert defended his team's excessive goals by referencing a scenario last season when three teams tied for the final two playoff seeds.


After proceeding down the region's list of tiebreakers, Lincoln County was the odd team out while Lake Oconee Academy and Towns County were the third and fourth seeds, respectively.



"For us to win region, unfortunately, you’ve got to pile on in order to get as many goals as you can," Tolbert said. "You’ve got to go into this thing thinking that you’ve got to win region. We have to look at it like ‘what happens if we tie?’ In our region, it does happen because there’s so many good teams."



Tolbert's sophomore daughter, Ivy, scored 11 goals during the 21-0 victory. She reached 100 goals for her high school career last Wednesday during a 6-2 win over third-ranked Armuchee.



Without scoring caps, Commerce (7-0) has outscored opponents 69-7 this season with a 37-4 margin within its region. Its closest game was a 5-4 win over Social Circle (7-1) on Feb. 7. The teams play each other again Thursday at Social Circle.



Tolbert says he's glad that a solution was reached within the region so that a team doesn't feel forced to score an exorbitant amount of goals. It's also in the best interest of inferior foes to not suffer the embarrassment.



"It’s not good for the sport and it’s not good for the region and not good for the school," Tolbert said. "It makes us look like we’re bullies or whatever, but it was just an unfortunate situation with how the tiebreakers were. It was good that we could sit down and say that we’ve got to change this. And we did, it was good and we worked it out."

This is an absurd case of poor sportsmanship. No school should be trying to score 21 goals. And no player should be left on the field to score 11 goals in one game.

I don't understand. Every game our team has lead by 9 goals was ended immediately when the 10th goal was scored. I thought this was SOP for GHSA.

.

Not sure how any team could have scored 21 because the game is supposed to end as soon as any team is up by 10 goals.[/quote]


The article explains the mercy rule. Three check points:
1. Half way through first half if score difference is 7+, half over. 2nd half is reduced by half
2. At Halftime, if score difference is 7+, the second half is reduced by half the time.
3. If at any point in the second half the score difference is 10+ , game is over.

A team winning by 6 or less at the half of the first half, can continue playing until the first half is over. In that period of time, the goal difference can get as larger as time permits by scoring as many goals and of course, avoiding being scored.

What you have probably seen it’s your teams winning by less than 10 at halftime and making it 10 goal difference sometime in the 2nd half.

Explaining winning and losing to a young kid is tricky. Sport should absolutely be about winning - it’s the essence of competition.. but the lessons in life that come from winning and losing are important.

… and I understand why the Commerce HS coach did what he did - but I am glad the rules have been changed to stop that from happening - because that’s ridiculous.

I believe the home/away is based on region size. From what I have seen, if there are 6 or fewer schools in a region they play each other twice. Larger regions only play each other once.

I think they should allow the regions to vote on it themselves. If a majority wants to play home & away then that is the schedule. However, if the majority only wants to play once, then only play once.

Seems like it would be pretty simple to say "Once a team is up by 10 goals the game is over." I wonder how many 11 goal comebacks there have ever been?

My kid has been on the winning side of a bunch of these games... it isn't fun for the winners aside from some kids getting PT in a game. But, you have to play Region games... so not sure what can be done.