kickgrass

LOL good boy.

I understand the sentiment here, but disagree with the basis of some of it. For one the club coaches are not (although it works out that way sometimes for the Hgih School teams) feeder programs established for the High Schools. Club coaches should not adapt their style of play to the High School, for one reason only the very fortunate High Schools have coaches that are knowledgable enough to establish a workable/winning style of play. High School players should be able to adapt to new styles of play. It is the responsibility of coaches, both club and High School to be able to adequately teach their style or multiple styles. My daughters club team has girls from 12-14 different High Schools so it is not possible to copy all of those styles. Club soccer, when done right is a progressive/dynamic program that builds upon what was learned at the younger ages. Early on the primary focus should be on footskill development and learning the basics of the game. As the player progresses through the age groups more time should be spent on the more developed skills that utilize those skills learned before. At some point winning should become more of a focus (and with these athletes if you have to encourage them to want to win they probably are in the wrong place) along with teaching tactics and strategy. While the drills that they work on are utilizing old skills and teaching new skills, they do not need to be dribbling through cones and doing the things that they did at younger age groups. If they didn't learn the early skills they will likely not be successful at the new ones. Kind of like trying to do Calculus without undertsanding basic math. I think there is definitely a place for both of these programs, school and club, and give thanks for both. My daughter has learned things from and enjoys both. But a main issue is that with the time restrictions placed upon High School programs by the TSSAA, school coaches do not have the time to teach kids to play soccer. If they can not dribble a ball when they get there, the school team is way behind the 8 ball compared to the programs that have skilled players coming to them.

My daughter started club/selct/travel when she was 8 (U-9), she's now a senior in High School. All of these years soccer has been a huge part of her life, and she still loves it. Now she intends to play in college. Having said that, it depends on the child. I've seen a lot of kids that she started with that have since dropped out of soccer, either to concentrate on other sports, due to "burn out", or just didn't want to make the committment any more. Because to play club soccer at the older age groups in Division 1 (which is the highest level) is a huge committment of time, money and effort. I talked with her prior to starting club soccer and explained that she would have to be willing to miss out on some things to do it. That when they had games and tournaments on a weekend that she may have to miss sleepovers, parties and some other social events. She was OK with that and always accepted that as a part of her committment. I always tried not to push her, support her, not be critical or overly insane on the sidelines to the point of being an embarrassment to her (if you get involved you'll see what I mean. The level of play, competition and hopefully coaching is at a higher level than what she sees at the Rec level. It's unlike rec in that she may have to try out and earn a spot on the team. The other big issue is that you as parents have to be willing to make a big committment of your time and in many cases financially. It's not that expensive early on, but boy when they start traveling a lot, out of state and many weekends, paying coaches and trainers, etc. it can get very expensive. Chattanooga has 3 good clubs that I'm aware of: ERSA (East Ridge Soccer Association, Signal Mountain, and Redoubt. They all field competitive teams. It's been good for my daughter and she has learned everything that I hoped she would when she started playing, such as: teamwork, leadership, maturity, how to lose and win graciously, that hard work pays off and that a group that works hard together can achieve things that individuals can not. She has been blessed to be coached and trained by caring, educated, skilled people and to play with girls that are good kids and outstanding soccer players.

I understand, but honor is the correct word, because it is an honorary title. There is no tournament, there is no way to compare the teams because they don't play the same teams to compare results, everyone doesn't play in the same season. Having said that, it is a very nice thing to be able to be National Champions. At the very least it signifies an truly outstanding team effort.

The Williamson County schools have very high percentages of club players with several likely approaching 100% (maybe a couple that don't). My daughter has played club soccer since she was 8 years old and if forced to choose she would probably pick club. But, High School is very, very important to her and there is something special about putting on your school colors and playing in front of fellow students and carrying that school banner. In the past in Williamson and Rutherford county there have been some club coaches that tried to force their players to not play in school and only club. Thankfully, they failed miserably in that attempt and gave it up to keep their players. There are many current instances of successful club coaches for older girls teams serving as assistant coaches on High School teams. There is certainly room for both and I hope that the TSSAA will keep their noses out of it and allow both to peacefully coexist.

Excellent post Laban. Just a little bias regarding the Franklin squad pick...LOL. I agree with the pick of St. Agnes, based upon their results. To allow 1 goal through and entire season is mind boggling. While they may not have played a devastating schedule every game, they had to play within their division and outside that they played some very challenging teams. I think it is very difficult to compare the teams of 92 and back with todays teams, due to the increased parity across the state. Back in those days 15 years ago there were a lot fewer girls playing club soccer from the age of 9 till seniors in High school. Now it is commonplace in the top programs. So that makes it much more difficult to finish the season undefeated. Now you have to bring your A game every game to win. Did the 2005 JPII team go undefeated? I don't know. With respect to national and regional rankings, I think they are very flawed, nice but flawed, because all states do not play during the same season.

The score does indicate how the game went. But more than anything it was probably related to Brentwood getting on a roll. Everyone has seen how the flow of a game takes over sometimes. Brentwood was up 2-0 in the first 10 min. and got a lot of energy from it, Hendersonville got down from it. Nothing seemed to go right for Hendersonville, everything seemed to go right for Brentwood. Past results and knowing some of the Hendersonville players indicate that Hendersonville is not that bad, just had that bad of a night. They'll bounce back. Historically, Hendersonville has started slow and come on striong at the end, when it really matters. Regarding the Notre Dame game, not to take anything away from an excellent Notre Dame team, but you did not see anything close to the best that Brentwood has to offer.

You are right EHSparent, they probably won't reschedule. Too bad because it was shaping up into a very good game. It was very close to half, but it had not ended when the lights crashed for the final time, because the ball had just been played through to a Brentwood forward and she was moving to goal. Then again maybe the lights went out and the whistle blew to also end the half at the same time. I don't know. When I saw 1:43 on the clock it probably was stopped and the timekeeper juist missed the 2:00 mark at stopping it. I guess the refs are the only ones that know for sure. Anyway, hope that it gets rescheduled and good luck to EHS the remainder of the season.

Very unfortunate circumstances for both teams. I'm not sure, but I don't think this is considered a complete game. There was about 1:43 left in the 1st half when the lights failed. Ensworth was playing an excellent game at the time and as expected Emily Perkins is very tough to handle. I hope that the game can be rescheduled by both teams, however with 2 schedules to deal with at this time of year, I'm sure that it will be difficult, but if the coaches wish I'm sure there are some Saturday's open. Does anyone know how this works? Will they start with 1:43 left on the clock in the 1st half or will they have to play a complete game? Or is this considered a recorded game?

Ensworth is at Brentwood High School tonight at 7:00. Should be a good game and if you haven't seen Emily Perkins for Ensworth play, come check her out. She is definitly one of the premier if not the premier player in Tennessee this year.

In Mjhub's defense, almost everyone behind Brentwood has a loss and I would guess (based upon his rankings) that he considers 2 ties against the #14 and 16 ranked overall teams is worse than a loss to the # 7 ranked overall team. Of course everyone is now getting into the meat of their schedules and all of this should shake out over the next few weeks. Franklin and Brentwood play Sept 11 and that should (as always) be exiting and well played.

The Franklin-Ravenwood 0-0 tie perfectly illustrates the point papa-k was trying to make. With 5 quality teams: Centennial, Ravenwood, Franklin, Independence and Brentwood all vying for 2 spots after the District Tournament it will be a very very interesting season. With the regular season being all abour seeding the tournament. Then anything can happen there. Example: last year Ravenwood did not win a game on their side of the District, turned it up at tournament time and advanced to and past the region, eventually losing to Hendersonville in the Sectional.

Quite a line-up. Is that the Katie Hunter?

I won't hazard the predictions, but these teams will all find out what they have and what they need to work on this weekend.

Brentwood- 5 Rossview- 0

Brentwood- 3 Clarksville - 0

I agree that it is top-bottom strength. When you have 5 teams that can win and/or pull the upset and advance (Franklin, Brentwood, Centennial, Independence and Ravenwood), that makes the season very interesting. Is there another district with that type of strength? Anyone know the real reason that Charlie West was let go as the coach at Ravenwood? The Principal said that she was getting rid of non-teaching coaches.

Granted Hendersonville lost some outstanding players last year, but they also have some very good players returning. I sure wouldn't overlook them.

I think I'm missing your point Canesoverhere. What are you trying to say?

I think that Arielle has been playing with them in tournaments all season and rostered with them all year. The way that I understand it is that if the player is rostered in another state they must have approval from that state. The player can only be on 1 State Tournament Roster and I don't believe that Arielle has rostered on another team. Isn't a player rostered by the team and not state of residence?

This is not about soccer, it's not about sports, it's about today's society, where people that don't get things just the way that they want run out and hire an attorney to collect retribution for their imagined wrongs. Maybe make a buck or 2. Shame on them for handling this manner in this way.

In the U-17 Division, both Real Madrid and Cobra 90 won their brackiets and made the semi-finals, where Cobras lost 2-0 to Ohio Elite and Real Madrid won their semi-final in PKs then lost by the same 2-0 score in the Final to Ohio Elite. Good showing for Tennessee in this tournament at U-17.

A better way to evaluate keepers would be save percentage. Where the number of saves is divided by the number of shots on goal. THat way an outstanding goalkeeper that plays for a weak team and allows 5 goals on 40 shots on goal still has a 87.5% save percentage. Where a keeper that plays for a better team and only has 8 shots on goal and allows 1 goal has the same 87.5% save percentage. A way to compare apples to apples a bit better.

No I don't think the team is "that bad". All of the girls selected are outstanding players, and I didn't mean for my comments to be derogatory to any of them. My intital comments regarded curiosity as to the selection process. TTU I'm not sure that the Heisman Trophy is a very good comparison though. Since the sports writers get to see the players a lot on TV and ESPN and other coverage about them in print. There may be a similarity in that the schools lobby hard for players to be slected, I just don't know.

I will say that sports writers are not worthy of selecting the All-Midstate team. I doubt very seriously that they see every player in the mid-state play. So if not what do they base their selection on? With the very small amount of coverage that girls soccer recieves in the press, I would think that backs up my assumption that they don't see them play. So what do they base the selection on then? Stats? Lobbying by parents and/or coaches? Who knows? I agree that these selections are to be taken wit a grain of salt, but my original inquiry was just curiosity regarding who did the selections.