DragonSoc

Best of luck to the guys. Hope Nick doesn't come back wearing blue, he might not be let back in his house!

Collierville is fielding and starting several Sophomores this season. Most notably are Brent Lesnick and Mitchell Lindsey. Lesnick, a center forward with midfield pedigree has excellent ball skills and speed. He has scored four goals for the Dragons already and has recorded one assist. He is also an ODP player having traveled to Mexico with the TN team last year and plays for TN RUSH. Lindsey is a tall center back starting alongside Senior Co-Captain Kevin Hensley. Collierville's coach is looking at this season as Lindsey's apprenticeship before taking over defensive leadership duties for the All-State , Hensley next season. Lindsey has already made crucial tackles, shot blocks and has scored a goal for the Dragons in the Cleveland Tournament as he tunes his tactical positioning under Hensley's tutilage. Lindsey plays club at Collierville LOBOS. Also look for midfielder Cade Peeper to make an impact this year and the next two for Collierville. Coming off an ACL injury during club season, Peeper has quickly regain his trademark quickness after starting two matches and coming off the bench to score two goals and an assist in the Dragons first eight games of the 2010 season.

The only thing you can hope for is consistency within one particular game. If you can get that, consider yourself lucky. There are good referees and bad referees. Unfortunately the boom of youth soccer and the money paid to ref games at various levels has caused an influx of people looking to make easy money. When my son was eligible to get certified, he took the class, passed the test and got his uniform. His soccer playing schedule prevented him from ever really making much money at refereeing, but during a club state league game he was playing in, the AR was a gentleman that was in my son's certification class. According to my son, he scored lower than he did on the test a few weeks earlier. He blew several offsides calls against both teams. At least he was consistent! Already in High School play this year we have witnessed games where physical play was allowed during the first half and the second was filled with whistles and yellow cards. Not to mention a wrongly assessed "cleats up" call, eh Canes? We also had an incident where an opposing player told the ref to "go f*** yourself". After the flow of play the ref returned pulled out a red card, hesitated and showed the yellow instead. Our captain said as he walked by, "He tells you to "f" off and you just give him a yellow?" (OK, probably not the proper sentence structure or tone to address the ref, but he is 17 years old!) The ref turns and gives our captain a yellow. Both players could be construed as being disrespectful or dissenting, but there is clearly a difference and in most levels of play, the armband affords you inquiry with the ref and the captain in question has played at high club and ODP levels. I realize refs are human but at least stay consistent within the game. They aren't going to see everything or call everything the way we want, but they can strive to be consistent at their calls and no calls.

I had a son come through the Tennessee ODP system. It has pros and cons and TN Soccer has made efforts to improve the program over the past five years we were involved. Politics and expense exist in all US youth soccer programs from rec to high school to premier league to ODP. What I can say about ODP that my son would repeat as a benefit of the system is: *You receive training from various coaches (this is not only beneficial to the development of the player's game, but their coachability) *You get to meet players from across the state and the region (this is more important than you realize as it forms bonds, allows for guest playing with familar players, etc.) *Regional camp prepares them for an aspect of college (dorm life!) *Every college coach during recruitment seminars begin by saying..."We first look at ODP players" (This is because it takes dedication to the game to drive to the middle of the state to practice for two hours, or play year round) Obviously players make it to the collegiate level or beyond without ODP (and Academy and Development leagues are clouding the importance of the program), but if your child is serious about the sport and looks to play in college, ODP is one of the hoops that should be on their list to jump through. Now on topic: Competing at D1 or D2 at State Levels is another one of those great debates. If the player is serious, talented with aspirations to advance beyond club and/or high school, they need to be on a D1 competing team at the eligible age, period.

Rankings in high school are fickle at best. With kids graduating, dropping from programs or transferring to other districts, a great team last season may be a flop the next. Throw in injuries, good and bad referees, coaching changes, realignment of districts and the fact that the state is so large and some teams never face each other and it makes the task even more daunting. Strength of scheduling computations are only good after the fact in my opinion. Most rankings are educated predictions. And the mix play of AAA, AA and D2 in our area has always been confusing. In the past our AAA team have beaten say a St. George's and St. George's have gone on to win their division's State Title and receive higher rankings. Likewise, CHS has been beaten by smaller schools like Briarcrest. It is always safe to bet on the usual suspects, but anything can happen (as Collierville found out after losing a two goal lead to Germantown on two 2nd half PK's and 5 yellow cards and settling for a draw) I'll spare the bias commentary on the officiating. High School soccer is daylight and dark from club or ODP soccer. I've seen "star" high school players go backwards (have bad years) just like club or pro players. I've seen premier players who have no aspirations to play collegiate ball reach their senior year and slack off or quit altogether. Rankings are part of sports, but defying them is what makes sports interesting.

I think the issue is the same everywhere. In the Memphis Metro area, media coverage is usually limited to "key" matches (key meaning rematches from previous state champions). Most newsprint stories revolve around CBHS! Newspapers and tv have a barrage of sports topics to cover, both collegiate, professional and prep, with limited resources, time or print space. Soccer unfortunately is usually low on the totem poll, and high school soccer even lower. One way to expand this coverage is to have user submitted game summaries or stories. The local media around here is somewhat receptive to this concept (free reporters) and it allows for a larger pool of stories for editors to choose from. Large newspaper websites could/should reserve space for such submissions. The cost would be minimal (editing/uploading), and the rewards could be more web visitors/customers and thus more advertsing revenue.

http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... artner=RSS School/ Record 1. St. George’s/ 4-0-0 2. Briarcrest/ 2-1-0 3. White Station/ 1-0-1 4. CBHS/ 1-2-1 5. MUS/ 2-0-1 6. Cordova/ 3-0-1 7. Kingsbury/ 5-0-0 8. Collierville/ 5-0-2 9. St. Benedict/ 2-1-1 10. Arlington/ 2-1-1 11. Houston/ 1-2-0 12. Germantown/ 1-1-1 Rankings and records through Wednesday’s 3/31 games.

Scrappy game.

Collierville High School Senior Defender, Kevin Hensley has signed a National Letter of Intent to Carson-Newman College. http://www.chs-soccer.com

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but we'd like to share this with our fellow HS soccer fans & players across the state. Many of you may know or recognize Collierville High School Coach Ken Mears. Coach Ken was paralyzed in an accident at age 15. He is a teacher at CHS and coached the soccer teams for years. Last year he stepped down as HC of the Boys Varsity squad and coached JV and girls only. Two of his girls players have spearheaded a campaign to raise money to replace Coach Ken's expensive wheelchair that is old and falling apart. Just another example of the closeness of the soccer community and the impact Ken has had on his students and players! Mears on Wheels Fundraiser Site http://www.mearsonwheels.com/Mears_on_Wheels/Welcome.html Fox 13 Memphis News Coverage http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/good_news/011410_students-look-to-give-back-to-coach

Forgive me if this has already been posted, but we'd like to share this with our fellow HS soccer fans & players across the state. Many of you may know or recognize Collierville High School Coach Ken Mears. Coach Ken was paralyzed in an accident at age 15. He is a teacher at CHS and coached the soccer teams for years. Last year he stepped down as HC of the Boys Varsity squad and coached JV and girls only. Two of his girls players have spearheaded a campaign to raise money to replace Coach Ken's expensive wheelchair that is old and falling apart. Just another example of the closeness of the soccer community and the impact Ken has had on his students and players! Mears on Wheels Fundraiser Site http://www.mearsonwheels.com/Mears_on_Wheels/Welcome.html Fox 13 Memphis News Coverage http://www.myfoxmemphis.com/dpp/news/local/good_news/011410_students-look-to-give-back-to-coach