Generally Speaking

At 26-11 this year's Lafayette team is not on par with last year's final four team but far from weak. Lexington's best teams are definitely on a par with the best PUBLIC school teams from Louisville and Northern KY. Still no match for the Louisville privates who are still a couple of notches above the NKY privates. Lafayette did beat Science Hill in the Empire Classic ( Ranked 94th in PrepVolloeyball Top 100 at the time). The two losses to Dobyns-Bennett were hard fought and very close. I would certainly put both Science Hill and Dobyns-Bennett up against the best Nashville-Area teams we played in 2005 and 2006. (Lavergne, Siegel in 2006; Centennial and Independence in 2005) We have always enjoyed our experiences playing in TN the past 4 seasons and love to have Anderson Co. come and play in the Lafayette Invitational. Good luck to all as your state playoffs approach. The coaches in KY just released their 2nd Top 20 Poll of the season as we head into the district playoffs and it is populated with the usual suspects. It's nice having the poll even if it's just for the sake of arguments. KVCA High School Volleyball Top 25 Coaches Poll 2007 POLL #2: October 5, 2007 Rank School Points Last Poll 1 Assumption 392 1 (Louisville Private) 2 Mercy 382 2 (Louisville Private) 3 Sacred Heart 376 3 (Louisville Private) 4 Notre Dame 326 6 (NKY Private) 5 Holy Cross (Louisville) 325 5 (Louisville Private) 6 Newport Central Catholic 302 4 (NKY Private) 7 Henry Clay 273 T-11 (Lexington Public) 8 DuPont Manual 269 8 (Louisville Public) 9 Presentation 252 7 (Louisville Private) 10 St. Henry District 216 T-11 (NKY Private) 11 Paul Dunbar 206 14 (Lexington Public) Beat Anderson Co., TN in Lafayette's Tournament 12 Owensboro Catholic 200 T-9 (WKY Private) 13 Ryle 199 T-9 (NKY Public) 14 Boone County 172 T-11(NKY Public) 15 Greenwood 135 18 (WKY Public) Lost to Independence, Ravenwood, and Franklin in Ravenwood Tournament T-16 Ballard 111 19 (Louisville Public) T-16 Butler 111 15 (Louisville Public) 18 South Oldham 100 25 (Louisville Area Public) T-19 Beechwood 98 16 (NKY Public) T-19 Lafayette 98 17 (Lexington Public) Beat Science Hill, Lost to Dobyns-Bennett twice 21 Holy Cross (Covington) 73 NR (NKY Private) 22 Campbell County 64 NR (NKY Public) 23 Tates Creek 54 20 (Lexington Public) 24 South Laurel 41 NR (Southern KY Public) Only real rural representative on list 25 Simon Kenton 39 T-21 (NKY Public) ** Poll voted on by KVCA member varsity head coaches ** Poll conducted and distributed by the Kentucky Volleyball Coaches Association

Pool Brackets For The Louisville Invitational Pool 1 Assumption, Harding Acad, Cov. Holy Cross Pool 2 Sacred Heart,Harpeth Hall Acad., Ryle Pool 3 St. Ursala Acad., Beechwood, Male Pool 4 St. Joseph Acad., Boone Co., Campbell Co. Pool 5 Notre Dame, So. Oldham, Henry Clay Pool 6 Mercy, Presentation, Newport Central Pool 7 Huntsville, Butler, Conner Pool 8 Lou Holy Cross, St. Henry, Tates Creek

I think that Digs is right on point with regards to the older Louisville club girls and that continues to point the strength right back to KIVA Red and Assumption. The KIVA 17 White and MAVA 17 Elite were barely Open level quality. Impact 17-1 defeated MAVA Elite and finished much higher at nationals. The real strength at KIVA and MAVA runs deeper at the younger age levels. I think both KIVA and MAVA qualified 3 14 year old teams for Nationals. KIVA 15 Red and MAVA 15 Elite met in the AAU finals (won by MAVA) and the JO Open finals won by KIVA. These were the top 2 15 year old teams in the country both from Louisvlle. Obviously the National Championship won by Impact's 15's at the club division was huge for Nashville volleyball. I believe that both Lexington and Nashville need to find ways to expand the base of the younger girls. But Impact is clearly competing at a higher level than either of the Lexington clubs at this point.

I believe that ivolly may be right in his assessment. IMPACT's accomplishments certainly point to that improvement. In any given year the 4 or 5 below Assumption may move around a little bit and Brentwood could slot right in there. St. Henry, last year's runner-up, has lost a lot from last year but brought a strong replacement in from Cincinnati to offset somewhat. The continued success of the KIVA Red teams though assure that Assumption will continue to have the the depth and talent that can't be matched in KY over the long haul. And to maybe touch on a point that has been danced around a little bit by some, these are Catholic kids playing through a Catholic grade school program and moving on to the Catholic HS.

Mira Costa finished the season #2 in the country winning their state title with only 2 match losses. They also had one of the top recruits in the country, Alex Klineman, who has still not made a college choice. There are several schools in the running like Stanford and Hawaii to name a couple. She's supposed to be amazing.

While Page's run might have been short by some standards the number of titles is beyond dispute. And while there may be a drop off without Coach Berry, the addition of Independence High to further split the talent pool has probably had a greater negative effect. Very good list by Bratman however. It's good to see the public schools represented. In KY the 27 state championship games have been played with only 10 different teams--ALL Private and ALL from Louisville and NKY.

Assumption certainly dominates in Volleyball but I would disagree with the assertion that Sacred Heart dominates basketball. They did win 3 State titles in a row from 2002-2004 while Lex Cath won in 1999, 2001, and 2005. Lex Cath was runner-up to Sacred Heart 2 of those years. I would say that LexCath AND Sacred Heart dominate KY Girls Basketball. I don't know about TN but Boys and Girls soccer in KY is dominated by the schools in the heavily populated areas(Lex, Lou, NKY). I would say that this is due to the strong Club presence. In KY the idea of leveling the playing field is focused on Public vs. Private but I could make a case that the real unlevel field is between Urban and Rural areas. No one is looking at that at all.

Privates win 3 out of 4. Trinity beat St. X in 4A. LexCath beat Bowling Green in 3A. Russell beat Owensboro Catholic in 2A. Newport Central Catholic beat Mayfield in 1A.

While KY might have a number of small Christian schools(Louisville,Lexington, and Calvary come to mind) the overwhelming majority of privates are Catholic. Lexington Christian did win the KY State Baseball Championship(1 Class) this year. For the most part these privates are smaller right now. I don't know about Tennessee but I'm guessing there are more non-Catholic private schools in TN. I would say that this year except for St X and Trinity the stars aligned for the other 3 classes to each have a Catholic school. Lexington Catholic, who for most of the KY publics is Darth Vader, made the State Finals for the 1st time in their history. They have had really good football teams year in and year out but managed to get over the hump this year.

Yes the Catholic "mission" is to educate the Catholic kids the schools may have unused capacity. Why wouldn't a non-Catholic who can afford the tuition want to attend these schools if there is a perception, real or not, of a better educational opportunity. There also may be better athletic opportunities. While there are need-based scholarships available to ALL students at most of the KY Catholic institutions, there are limits as to how much of the total tuition it can cover. I believe that most of the schools can award up to half of the annual tuition to a student as long as there are scholarship dollars available. These funds are privately administered by independent organizations similar to those used by colleges. They also must be approved by the KHSAA. There are other sports governed by the KHSAA that are classed besides football. Track and Field and Cross Country also are classed with 3 each for boys and girls. I feel that in KY the argument with the publics has an awful lot to do with levelling the playing field. It's funny that the only playing field that they want to level though is between the bigger publics and the privates. Nobody cares about how unlevel the playing field is between the urban and rural schools. That to me is where the greater inequity exists.

PageMan, You do an awesome job keeping up with Volleyball for the folks on CoachT. It was good to see you again this past weekend. Thanks to you and everyone at Page and Centennial for the wonderful hospitality. The Lafayette girls had an awesome experience and win or lose the weekend would have been a success. We are hosting our own tournament this weekend with Anderson Co. as one of the participating teams. This is the 3rd year I believe they have played and we have yet to hook up with them. If we do this weekend I hope it will be in the Championship game. It was also great to meet Cowboys Up--Good luck to your daughter and Page the rest of the season. It was great to see TGLJ again. We lost the Independence match that he up-reffed. We did not want to see him up there again. We sure hope to come back and defend our title. Thanks again.

I was wondering if CU had any more information as to where the matches will be played and the remainder of the pools. We have been told that Lafayette will play Lebanon, Independence, and Culleoka on Friday night. There will be a re-pooling Saturday morning, and then tournament play will follow. Thanks for any information. We look forward to the wonderful hospitality we were shown at last year's tournament.

Whether they double the number or not isn't really relevant at schools like Trinity or St. Xavier. The state of Kentucky's football classes are determined by the enrollment of all the approximately 217 member schools. They are then divided into classes based on size with 25% of the schools in each class. For example: Class A--Schools with ranked enrollment 163-217. 0-531 students on average. Class 2A--Schools with ranked enrollment 109-162. 531-752 students on average. Class 3A--Schools with ranked enrollment 55-162. 753-1040 students on average. Class 4A--Schools with ranked enrollment 0-54. Over 1041 students on average. With more than 1400 male students they would be 4A regardless. I think under this scenario clearly size matters. They do have a larger pool to choose from in all sports. But they also have incredibly strong feeder programs. Louisville has a large Catholic population. The grade schools and middle schools have kids playing earlier and longer than the programs that the public schools offer. This is an advantage that really goes beyond perceived recruiting issues. Yes they may identify certain non-Catholic athletes who can supplement their needs much like a college team, but the pool of players contributes to filling that need internally. Certainly if the Catholic private schools in Kentucky did not recruit the buildings would be empty. There is no guaranteed population base to these schools. They have to put a quality academic program in place then convince people it is worth the significant amount of dollars required to enroll their children in that school.

Just want to set the record straight in Kentucky regarding St. Xavier and Trinity. Both schools are all boys schools with approximately 1400 students in grades 9 through 12. Not 2500. This still presents quite a pool to choose from in athletics. Likewise the Catholic girls high schools in Louisville have similar size pools to choose from.(Assumption, Sacred Heart, Mercy) The Catholic schools, particularly from Louisville, tend to dominate all of the fall sports in the state of Kentucky.(Football, Soccer, Golf, Volleyball) www.thsrock.net/about/index.html www.saintx.com/pdf/StXProfile2004.pdf