I find it interesting as a non native of South Carolina to listen to the rabid debate on this board as to what teams are stronger. The strand on goal scorers and GFC's comment within about players not being able to score against the likes of the upstate 3A teams lead me to do a little research on the subject. (I'm a teacher who has a couple of days off before heading down to the Palmetto Cup). What I looked at was the ranked teams from 4A down to 1A (sorry SCISA including you would have made life more complicated) and checked out the win loss record of ranked teams vs. ranked teams of other sized schools. What I found seems fairly interesting so I thought I'd share.
First let's look at 3A which seems to command the most debate on this board. I'll list the team played, the ranking, the classification and the result in parenthesis.
#1 Daniel - has 0 games against ranked teams from other classifications
#2 Greenville - Summerville, #6, 4A (W), Wando, #2 4A (L), Walhalla, #9, 2A (W),Christ Church, #1, 1A (L)
#3 Riverside - Dorman, #15, 4A (W)
#4 Myrtle Beach - Spring Valley, #14 4A (L)
#5 Dreher - Dutch Fork, #4, 4A (L), Bishop England, #2, 2A (L), Chapin, #3, 2A (W)
#6 JL Mann - Academic Magnet, #5, 2A (W)
#7 Eastside - Christ Church, #1, 1A (W)
#8 Seneca - Ridge View, #10 4A (L), Pendleton, #4, 2A (L), Walhalla, #9, 2A (L)
#9 Brookland-Cayce - Socastee, #1, 4A(L), Wando, #2, 4A (L), Chapin, #3, 2A (L)
#10 North Myrtle Beach - Pendleton, #4, 2A (W), Andrew Jackson, #8, 2A (W)
When totalling wins vs. the different classifications we see the following:
3A Vs. 4A - 2 wins and 6 losses
3A vs. 2A - 5 wins and 4 losses
3A vs. 1A - 1 win and 1 loss
I find this particularly interesting because it seems that for all the talk that we hear on the board about the upstate 3A squads and from GFC's players there doesn't seem to be alot to back it up. Yes, their teams beat each other up regularly but they do not win much vs. the bigger schools and even against smaller schools they just hold their own. That being said when I looked at the 4A schools there was a tremendous difference in won/loss record against smaller schools. 4A was 6-2 vs. 3A and 7-1 vs. 2A (didn't carry it out to 1A).
I'm interested in hearing why others on this board might explain the disparity between the 4A dominance over smaller schools vs. the lack of ability of the 3A squads to do the same. Thoughts? Comments? (and yes I realize I have too much time on my hands)