FutbalFan

First I would like to say congratulations to St Agnes...they are a fantastic team. As to your comments about Baylor you are wrong. Baylor was supposed to be in a somewhat rebuilding year and overachieved. With just two seniors and a team largely made up of sophomores...Baylor had a fantastic year. After winning four state championships in a row Baylor has not won the title again...yet. But saying that a 17-1-1 Baylor team cannot finish is really unfair to a young team that achieved more than anticipated this year. They will be back. Again congrats to St Agnes...but I think your comments about Baylor were off base. No disrespect meant to the Baylor girls at all. You are correct, they are young and all heart and never quit. Just don't like seeing the girls take the blame in the papers with excuses like "tired legs" and "they didn't play their best" during playoff time. It takes more than just the girls on field doing their part to win it all. St Agnes did a great job and had a game plan that won. Enough said.

St Agnes 1 Baylor 0 St Agnes had full control throghout and it could have been much worse. Teams like St Agnes seem to get better throughout the year while Baylor has difficulty finishing off a season for the third straight year.

It should be a great game. Baylor's D will be tested by St Agnes' outside speed. St Agnes center D will be tested by #22. In the end, I think the midfield will determine the outcome. Who can control possession better and create more chances? Too bad this game couldn't be on Saturday with two fully rested teams. I think that Baylor's 7pm game followed by 2:30 final will be tougher to recover from but it's not ideal for either team. At least I think everyone will get their $10 worth .... ouch

The reason I asked this question is I did have a dog in the fight. I know the defender did kick get the ball and it was not intentional to take down Brackett. I think only slow motion replay would tell the story. Yes, the GPS player got the ball as BU says, but Eastsoccer saw the angle of the hit which I wouldn't say was from behind completely but was not right next to her either. Did she go through her to get to the ball ????? I don't think anyone can say for sure without film and even then it might not be easy to call. I think the foul was called partly due to the previous takedowns of Baylor players near the box. I don't like a game determined by a PK as much as anyone else, but if you live on the edge with repeated fouls (and yellow card) then eventually you risk getting burned by it. It was a great game with each team doing what they could to move on. And to the GPS defender who had the yellow card and PK foul, she showed sportmanship each time by addressing Brackett after the foul, and Brackett did the same when she fouled her. It was a case of each player giving it her all.

Foul or No Foul? It was a tough (and good) game with numerous fouls called. One happened to be called in the box in overtime that led to game winning PK for Baylor. What is the opinion on whether it was a foul? I'm especially interested in "neutral" observers who didn't have a dog in the fight.

I was a bit short in my reply ..... I do think the young EHS team has heart and will improve and give many teams a great match. Baylor's starting lineup has 6 sophomores, 4 juniors and 1 senior. Not exactly a veteran squad age wise so they will also develop/get older/etc. The "younger girls" up front and in midfield are 1 sophomore and the rest freshmen. I mean no disrespect to EHS, and as both of us have said, they will compete. But I don't see EHS winning any games against this Baylor group at least until the sophomores graduate. But then again, this is soccer, and anything can and usually does happen.

Unfortunately, that wasn't really the case. Baylor played all offensive subs much of the game.

Good stuff ...... and a near impossible task. I can't fill in the blanks, but DIV II AA West has to be missing teams. Can anyone identify the missing?

Does anyone know how the Div II AA East/Middle will work this year? Webb is no longer in Div II AA East, leaving only Baylor and GPS. It could hardly have been considered a subregion last year with three teams, and now it's only two. /unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":unsure:" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" />

The U-15's will be interesting to say the least. Brentwood should be favored on paper, but Redoubt has improved a lot this spring after having had a coach change at the beginning of the year. Brentwood was also favored in previous years but Redoubt beat them 1-0 each time. There are other teams that are dangerous too. Let's just hope for good weather and good fields so that games can be decided by players and not the conditions. Does anyone know how the fields in Murfreesboro have held up through the rain? Last year we had the opposite problem ..... no rain and very bouncy fields.

I have no idea about the financial side of these mergers. I believe one of the major reasons is to strengthen the Select Teams and be more consistently competitive at the Division 1 level. This has worked for Alliance and Midsouth to a degree. As for Chattanooga, I don't see this improving the Select teams much if at all as Middle Valley and North River do not have competitive Select Teams, at least not at the Division 1 level. The biggest advantage I see is that the merged Select teams will have access to better fields at North River which are way under utilized given their quality. I apologize to those with facts and knowledge about the impact of the merger on recreational soccer. I plead ignorance and don't mean to marginalize it at all as I think soccer is a great game for all that can be played for fun way past school days. Can anyone provide info about the quality of Select Teams/Players at Middle Valley or North River? Redoubt has some decent teams, but lacks overall depth to be consistently competitive across all age groups. For Chattanooga to do this, I think Redoubt and Eastridge (PSA) would need to merge and there are just way too many politics and egos to overcome. If they did though .... Chattanooga would be a major force like Brentwood.

I agree a Soddy vs Baylor game would be good. Not too far to travel for a good game. I don't know about Soddy but Baylor will be essentially a new team next year. Some great young talent, but not too much game experience for the vast majority of players.

I don't think that's different than what I said, or at least what I intended to say. I meant the whole body of work to be the tie breaker in assessing teams that made it to the same level ie State Semi's. How else would you compare semifinalists to each other?

TN did well especially considering the process involved. The Coach of #2 McDonough does these rankings, hence 6 of the top 7 are from Maryland/DC. Also, McDonough lost to #1 but only dropped from #1 to #2, and State Champs in other classifications were rated below them. Baylor used to be #2 but didn't get the same consideration. Also, McDonough probably says that since they beat a couple of TN schools in regular season, then they (Maryland schools) should all be above TN. Shameful. I could say more, but I won't. I did well to hold off this long. Congratulations to all TN teams for a great year. It was certainly entertaining !!

Ok let's keep with the NASCAR example ...... it depends. Jimmy Johnson didn't win the last race, and I forget who did, but Jimmy was the Big NASCAR winner. To be honest, I don't really know what to say about the Eurosport Rankings. I really don't. I understand that State Champs who take home the hardware deserve top of their respective groups, but beyond that I think that a team's whole body of work should be considered. I haven't posted till now until the NASCAR example got me thinking. I'll say up front I am a Baylor supporter, so imagine my surprise for Baylor to go from Redmond #1 all the way to #9. We lost in the playoffs, and Father Ryan deserves their ranking over Baylor. And I admire the heck out of ND, but ND ends up ahead of Baylor? Why? They both lost in semi's and Baylor beat them in regular season? The only reason is that someone says AAA is better than A/AA which is better than DIV II, etc. It makes no sense to me. To be clear, I am not really argueing Baylor's ending ranking, more the Eurosport ranking process in general. Either Baylor should never have been at #1 most of the year, or they shouldn't be #9 at the end. One loss in a soccer season shouldn't swing things that much given the number of losses all theother teams had. Final point .... those who recall some of my other posts will know that Baylor's loss was not a complete surprise to me; an upset yes, but not a surprise. Baylor had difficulty scoring goals all year. There was only one or two games that starters were pulled to prevent lopsided scores. Mostly we scored a goal or two late to survive after having "seemingly dominated play" .... just ask GPS (1-0 victory) or ND as noted above.

I looked for Div II on TSSAA and couldn't find a similar document. Does anyone know if there is one? Also, are these final, or can schools petition to move up?

Baylor losses 9 seniors. 7 starters, and the other 2 played extensively. They only had 1 Junior and 1 Sophmore who got any real time on the field. The team will be very young next year but the returning Freshmen are quite good. Team depth will be a big issue though.

Ok MVM, I'm confused ..... are you and bluclearsky actually the same person, using two different logons to reply with. Hmmmm ...... I wish I had thought of that myself. /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

People commenting on tuffnstuff's list have two options: 1. Be critical without adding any value added information 2. Be positive, suggesting additional players and why I vote for #2. It adds to the discussion and has the opportunity to recognize additional deserving players. I would agree that a District Defensive MVP probably deserves to be included. So just let us know. No need to trash someone else's effort to recognize excellent players. Just make the list better and everyone gets to feel good.

Tuffnstuff, this is a great list, and I commend you for putting a target on your back by posting. All the girls in your list have made great contributions to their teams. I think defenders are a bit under-represented. Carissa Sanchez of Baylor is actually a midfielder, albeit a defensive holding midfielder in Baylors 4-3-3 formation. I think your comment about Taylor Davidson having a tough as nails defensive front is right on. Taylor made a lot of very good saves over the year but she did not really have to face many shots. So to add an outside defenders name to the list, I will add Natalie Brackett for All-State, who is not only a very solid defender, but pushes up to midfield to snuff counteracts better than anyone I've seen. I admit I haven't seen but a few non-Baylor games. There must be some other defenders out there to recognize. Again, tuffnstuff put out a great list for us to provide positive input to. Thanks.

Maybe just for you Dog! /roflolk.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":roflolk:" border="0" alt="roflolk.gif" />

Dog is right on. Just check this link from PJP II Soccer Website: http://www.jp2hs.org/athletics.cfm?subpage=375489 They are on a mission

Divison II AA brackets are set: Briarcrest vs PJP, Thursday 4:30pm Baylor vs Father Ryan, Thursday 7:00pm Both games are played at GPS.

The Semi's are set: Briarcrest vs PJP, Thursday 4:30pm Baylor vs Father Ryan, Thursday 7:00pm Both games are played at GPS.

It ain't over till it's over !! There's no such thing as the "h2odog curse", is there?. If so, Baylor doesn't hvae a chance. And don't leave us dog .... keeping giving us your thoughts and predictions.