I watched the Riverside v Hillcrest game last evening. Both sides were short of key players. In the first half, with a strong blustery wind blowing directly down the pitch from behind them, Riverside scored with a wonderful goal from 30 yards or so. With about 13 minutes to go Hillcrest responded with a goal from a corner kick. Riverside had the edge on possession; Hillcrest probably had the edge on goal attempts. Overtime and then penalty kicks and Riverside won 6-5.
A tie would have been a wonderful result for Coach Laney Younts' much improved Hillcrest team. An unranked team tieing the number one ranked team is quite an achievement. So why is it necessary to go through the ritual of taking penalty kicks in a competition where no one is eliminated.
I've long been a proponent of ending matches in a tie. It's a natural result in soccer.
Riverside goes ten deep Hillcrest goes 3 deep what key players were missing . Great showing from Hillcrest,Riverside with all there talent squeaks by Mann and now Hillcrest what's the problem.
I had the pleasure of spending about 20 minutes last night with Mr. Joseph Keenan, Principal of Lancaster HS, prior to officiating my matches. Mr. Keenan was working the gate and had seen me officiate Lancaster's Tuesday evening match. Mr. Keenan is the Vice-President of the SCHSL and next year he ascends to the top spot.
At the top of my list of "what I would do if I was the czar of South Carolina high school soccer", was the elimination of OT and PK's in regular season matches. Mr. Keenan agreed with my logic (it's a natural result, it rewards the "underdog" who struggles to get a result, it gets the kids home earlier on a school night) and sees no reason why this shouldn't be implemented.
Mr. Keenan encouraged me to schedule a lunch appointment with Skip Lax and Jerome Singleton in Columbia. We will see what happens?
Will OT and PK's be eliminated?
Will the SCHSL pick up the check?
By the way, I found Mr. Keenan to be extremely curteous, professional and soccer-friendly. I believe we might have a "convert" down in the Columbia offices.
It is stupid not to have ties in HS soccer. It's part of the game at every level. Just because some DA bumpkin AD can't figure out a win is worth three points and a draw is one is not an excuse not to have ties in soccer.
I might add that we should use aggregate and goals for/goals against as a tie breaker as well in region play. I know that you have to cap the goals scored, but why not at 3 or 5?
If you start counting goals, doesn't always give an accurate depiction of a team's quality when it comes to playoff time. High School season is a pretty long stretch with a lot of room for things to happen in between.
Just an example: Team A has a significant number of multi-sport players, and several of their best are still in basketball playoffs when soccer season starts. Team B has all of their major players at the beginning of the season.
In the first or second week of the season, Team B beats Team A (minus their multi-sport athletes) 4-0. A month later in their second meeting, Team A (with all its players now and time to train) beats Team B 3-1. Team B is still ahead on goal differential, even with a 3-goal cap, but does that show they are the better team come playoffs?
If it aint broke dont fix it.
It's broke. It's been broke for a long time.
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If you start counting goals, doesn't always give an accurate depiction of a team's quality when it comes to playoff time. High School season is a pretty long stretch with a lot of room for things to happen in between.
Just an example: Team A has a significant number of multi-sport players, and several of their best are still in basketball playoffs when soccer season starts. Team B has all of their major players at the beginning of the season.
In the first or second week of the season, Team B beats Team A (minus their multi-sport athletes) 4-0. A month later in their second meeting, Team A (with all its players now and time to train) beats Team B 3-1. Team B is still ahead on goal differential, even with a 3-goal cap, but does that show they are the better team come playoffs?
Yeah and a pro soccer team that picks up transfers in the second half of a season shouldn't get to count their 3-0 victory over a team that they lost to 1-0 earlier in the year. Huh? 
Eh, comparing pro and high school soccer is a bit apples and oranges, don't you think? Rules of eligibility and participation are far, far different. My point is, one or two lopsided matches due to circumstances that may be temporary shouldn't be a major deciding factor. Not to mention, it would probably lead to a rash of "bunkering down" rather than actually playing the full scope of the game.
I will chime in on this as being a coach that moved recently to South Carolina from a State in which there are no regular season OT's or PK's.
Problems:
1) You get a lot of teams that simply sit back and play 8-10 in the box the whole game and never come out. I know that you have some that do that here, but it is a lot more common with out the threat of OT or PK's.
2) And most importantly, You go the whole season without ever being able to practice the "TRUE PRESSURE" of a shoot out enviroment. I know that you can do you best to put stipulations on it in training, but you can never simulate what its like with the game on the line and fans in the stands. If SC changes to the no OT or PK's you will have teams season hanging on the balance of PK's that they never get to practice.
I say do the OT but not the PK's. Also, get rid of offsides and you will have true American sport.
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I say do the OT but not the PK's. Also, get rid of offsides and you will have true American sport.
Have you struggled all these years, trying to appreciate what appears to be an "anti-American" sport? Try embracing the notion of offsides, and what it BRINGS to the game.
I like offsides to a point. Some teams do a great job of pushing up and frustrating teams. I personally would like to do away with offsides once you reach a certain point on the field; maybe around 20 yard line or direct and indirect kicks.
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I say do the OT but not the PK's. Also, get rid of offsides and you will have true American sport.
A lot of Americans want to Americanize everything. Why can't we admit that, every once in a while, someone else can come up with something good. I personally don't like the way "American" sports have been modified to quench the American thirst for higher scoring. Baseball, American football, and basketball have all been changed for the worse, in my opinion, by rules modifications designed to increase scoring. Whatever happened to the knockdown, dragout, 7-6 football games? The 1-0 pitchers' duals? The good basketball defenses when there was no shot clock? So, we also want to take away the offside rule so the average soccer game would be 7-4? You think more Americans would like it then?
They would come in masses to watch 6-5 or 8-6 games. A sport where pros can play for 90 min with no score is not watchable. What other sport can you go to the store, come back, and not miss anything. A 1-0 baseball or 7-6 football game is good once and a while but we love our offense. Shot clock in basketball you can blame on Dean Smith's four corners.I guess thats why they invented Lacrosse. Now; I'm not speaking for myself . I like the game as is but with only 50-100 people at the stadium during games speaks volumes. Lacrosse has much better attendance. Maybe because the scores are higher. Having girls home and guys away and vice versa doesn't help either.
I guess I could always watch Pinewood games if i need a scoring fix
There could be a few changes to offsides that might work to "improve the game".
How about loosening the distance a few feet (or meters if you want to keep it Europeanized) say more the 6' or about 2 meters, yea I know more room for ref judgement.
How about a rule that says a player can be "offsides" but must play the ball back and may not advance it toward the goal while offside
How about allowing 1 player to be offsides as long as they are outside the box (above the line not on the sides.)
If you want to increase scoring, just make the goal bigger. Make it 30' x 10' and goals galore.
The higher level of play you watch, the more beautiful the game is. There's no need to change it in my opinion. The game is near perfect. I'm watching Arsenal and Tottenham right now and it's a great game. I think it would still be an amazing game if the score was 0-0. Did you see Argentina vs. U.S. recently? There were times of the game when Argentina was incredibly entertaining to watch. If you like to watch soccer, you wouldn't care that the score was 1-1, it was still a joy to watch.
I do find it very boring to watch low level soccer and see a 0-0 or 1-0 game. Whether it's a club game, high school, middle school or college; bad soccer is bad soccer and won't be anymore attractive just because there were more goals.
I guess my point is, a game that is 8-7 is still awful to watch if the goals aren't good goals and the play is low level. It will still be boring if it's just a bunch of players kicking a ball all over the place. Conversely, two teams playing an attractive style, high level match will still be exciting and fun to watch even if it's 1-0 or 0-0.
Totally agree with harry..Most exciting matches I have watched were 0-0 draws..Do away with pks..The match is over at the final whistle..
CoachCal, I understand your point about regular season PKs but how often does this happen? In five years of coaching my team has gone to penalty kicks once. If there were ties allowed I don't know that you would see alot of them.
1. We've already attempted to "americanize" futbol and came away with american football...a pansy sport where oversized men run around, covered in pads, and play for 15 seconds out of every minute. Must we go any further?
2. Doing away with offsides, and therefore, more than likely, increasing the number of goals scored, would diminish the meaningfulness of, and pride taken in, a goal.
3. PKs are luck. Just because 5 players can put the ball in the back of the net when only facing a keeper doesn't mean that their team is most deserving of the win. If so, then why don't we eliminate defense as a whole and simply see who can make the most shots from 12 yards away? Obviously, there is a need for a tiebreaker in games that determine knockout or region standings, but not in games that don't count towards post-season play.