soccermom127

Greetings from the west! It is a very sad year....no daughter left playing high school soccer! Of course, I still have to keep check on what is going on! For Briacrest this week: Tuesday: Briarcrest 4 St Georges 1 Thursday: Briarcrest 2 Germantown HS 0 Here is an article regarding the season from the west: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/23/girls-soccer-outlook/ First day of the season scores: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2011/aug/23/prep-results-aug-23/ Wishing everyone a great (and safe) season!

D2 AA Substate score: Briarcrest - 5 Harpeth Hall - 0 Hutchison - 0 Father Ryan - 4

Thanks for the Briarcrest vote! We have had a challenging season to date playing top teams in the state including the AAA state champion, AAA state finalist, both AAA state semi finalists, and D2AA state champion....(Houston, Collierville (1 goal loss), Franklin (1 goal loss), Brentwood (2 goal loss), Hendersonville (1 goal loss), St Agnes (2 goal loss), and Germantown (win). The games were close and not one sided games, which I am thrilled with considering we are starting only two seniors and two juniors with limited bench talent. Many of the games could have gone either way. We have a Freshman keeper who is getting stronger with each game. Now, we have to get down to business playing St Benedict, Hutchison, ECS, St George's, etc.....this may very well be only a re-building year, but I am hoping to finish the season strong playing D2 teams.

St Agnes - 2 Briarcrest - 0

Two additional scores: Franklin HS - 2 St George's - 1 Hearsay was that Franklin took 32 shots to St George's 6 shots....not confirmed...just from a SGS parent. Hendersonville - 2 Briarcrset - 1 Tough game for Briarcrest. Both goals for Hendersonville came from well placed free kicks from about 25 yards out. Hendersonville played the better first half while Briarcrest played the better 2nd half taking repeated shots on goal. Hendersonville's keeper played strong. Monday games: Collierville versus Franklin Briarcrest versus Brentwood St Georges versus Hendersonville

In the past, Briarcrest had always done the Oak Ridge tournament, but the Hendersonville tournament attracted schools from Memphis that have typically gone to Oak ridge. One big advantage is that the girls did not have to miss school on Friday since Hendersonville utilizes the holiday and plays games on sat/sun/mon versus Oak ridge playing games on fri/sat/sun. This also allowed parents to not have to take a day of vacation from work to go to the tournament. Additionally, it is a shorter drive to play in Nashville. Teams in Hendersonville: Hendersonville HS Brentwood HS Franklin HS Collierville HS St George's Briarcrest

This is hearsay.... Collierville - 3 Hendersonville - 2

Hendersonville Tournament started today....please use this topic for reporting scores. Six teams are participating....Franklin HS, Brentwood HS, Hendersonville HS, Collierville HS, St George's HS, and Briarcrest. Each of Memphis area teams will be playing each of the Nashville area teams once. First game of the tournament: Briarcrest - 3 Franklin HS - 4 Franklin was up 2 to 0 at the half and Briarcrest came out feisty in the 2nd half scoring two goals to tie the game. Franklin scored 2 additional with Briarcrest only answering with 1. It was a great game to watch with Franklin having more shots on goal than Briarcrest, but the Briarcrest team did not give up and continued to fight.

Here are thoughts from the Commercial Appeal sportswriters about Memphis area soccer teams: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/aug/25/area-soccer-squads-loaded-with-talent/

I think that this will be a closer game than your guess represents. One of St Mary's top scorer is out and their strong center mid is still playing with her club team in AL....with that said, I am guessing it to be a 1 to 2 goal game. Hutchison did lose their sweeper and starting forwards to graduation, but they still have a solid defensive team.

I'm still not sure that you are getting this.... First of all,I count seven players on the Pillow team that are not Freshman...so hardly a Freshman team.....and Varsity versus JV is based on skill levels....not on the age of the player....the "age" and "size" issues goes out of consideration at the high school level. Isn't one of Collierville's shining stars this year a Freshman forward? I bet she is better (and will get more play time) than some of the older players on the team...just a guess.... Briarcrest Varsity has only 2 Seniors and 2 Juniors with the rest Sophomores and Freshmen (including a Freshman keeper)....similar to what you say Pillow had.... Regardless of the mix of the age groups of the team, I still maintain the importance of having even levels of play for pre-season games/scrimmages....that is the only point that I am trying to make....as I said earlier, it isn't about winning and losing at this time of year for most teams. I heard that there was a game today with a 8 to 1 result...for a pre-season scrimmage....what is that about?!?!? I would hope that Collierville pulled up some once they had the game in hand against Hutch to provide more development opportunities.....

That is my point exactly....they do only have four games to develop their team. If they do not take the pre-season opportunity to play all of their players....where will they be when they needs those players to step up? Yes, it is of course the coach's choice of how he uses the talents provided....but this is pre-season....not games for bragging rights... If there was a team of middle school students on the field, I would hope that the better team would adjust accordingly. If the better team did not adjust....then that is where I would take fault.... Although I would much rather see a more competitive game for the entire game....I do applaud the coaches that take the risk of loss (as painful as it may be to watch) in order to see how their players are able to step to assist in various game situations to enable them to make future game decisions...

I agree...I had heard that also. I heard the Collierville didn't pull back too much, also. These pre-season games really aren't a good indication of what will happen during the season and are designed to give most coaches a good look at their plaers. Briarcrest played Pillow Academy this morning to a 0 to 1 loss. While the varsity was in, Pillow couldn't get the ball over the mid-field line and BCHS was shooting at will....sorry to say nothing would go in the net. When BCHS put the JV in, Pillow had some opportunities and was able to put the ball in the net once. You would have thought that they had won the World Cup! What is sad about these games is that all coaches don't use these games to work with and develop their teams. The Pillow Academy coach had about 10 players that never saw the field today and told his starters that "this was their chance to score" when Briarcest put the JV in. I guess he isn't much for developing a team. It was pretty obvious....Briarcrest would sub 11 girls at a time and the flow of the game would completely change!

Welcome back everyone! Looks like we are off to a great start...and we haven't even heard from WaterDog yet! Always fun to spice up the message board. Now, onto soccer.... The Collierville pre-season tournament began tonight. Briarcrest played Jackson Academy out of MS to a 4 to 0 win. Like a typical pre-season, a third of the game was played JV who fought hard to keep JA out of the goal but was not as successful as the Varsity against them. All four goals for Briarcrest came from different girls...which is really great to see a lot of girls step up in light of the fact that we lost a lot of seniors. We are a young team this year starting six Sophomores and a Freshman keeper rounded out by two Juniors and two Seniors. I watched the first 20 minutes of St Agnes versus Starkville Academy game...SAA scored in the first minute off a nice header and was up 3 to 0 after 20 minutes. SAA has a pretty young team this year, also. In an earlier game, I had heard that Collierville was up 2 to 0 over Hutchison who lost a lot of seniors this year also.