SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer AA/A rankings

Rankings should be:
1. Waccamaw-udefeated and beat defending champion BE
2. BE-only division loss to Waccamaw
3.Woodruff-split with SSC but lead in goals 6-3
4.SSC-only division loss to Woodruff

Interesting and problematic as always for AA/A because these rankings will determine home-field for playoffs. Woodruff leads SCS 6-2, actually (5-0 W, then a 2-1 L), but SCS will remain ahead because most recent usually stands. SCS and Woodruff have matches against CC left for that to shuffle out, but SCS gained an upper hand by winning recently in 2nd OT. BE and Waccamaw will face each other again before playoffs. I would be surprised if these are not the match-ups for Upper and Lower—BUT that's why we play the matches. . .

Upper-state teams are heading back to play next week after spring break; when I coached full-time, I hated the spring break interruption and always worry that it will hurt any team's focus. Let's hope these fine clubs can maintain their form and make the end of this season a competitive one for AA/A girls.

P&Y: "Interesting and problematic as always for AA/A because these rankings will determine home-field for playoffs. "

I thought region tie-breaking rules determined ties in standings and, thus, the home field assignment in the playoffs.

NO!

AA/A has nothing to do with regions, unlike AAA, AAAA. The brackets are determined by seedings. For example, Woodruff, CC, SCS, and Emerald have been the most competitive teams among each other in Upstate AA/A over the past few years because how they perform among themselves determines the seedings for the bracket; except for CC and SCS, these teams have no Region in common and they are even a mix of A and AA. That's why we AA/A gripe even more than others about the rankings—:)

Rankings aren't purely for fun in AA/A; IT DETERMINES SEEDING FOR THE PLAYOFFS.

P&Y, please excuse my ignorance of AA/A. I am more familiar with AAA and AAAA. I should have checked the SCHSL site before posting. I just checked and, while brackets are posted for AAA and AAAA, AA/A has the following on the playoff brackets page:

"Seeding Meeting is Friday, April 27 at 10:00 am. Brackets will be posted after the meeting."

No problem—Common confusion—Many people on this board don't quite understand why the AA/A folk get so excited about rankings—We have a reason to lobby and argue for rankings—:)

P&Y or anyone else,

How many teams make it into the playoffs (32 or less)? Is it the top 3 from each region and all teams in a region with less than 3 teams? What teams get byes and how is that determined? I noticed in last year's brackets that there were a lot of byes and was wondering why some other teams weren't included in place of the byes.

Thanks in advance.

I believe the girls side is similar to the boys--because of the shortage of teams, all teams who enter the playoffs are seeded. Some teams choose not to enter for various reasons, some including that low seeds often have to travel a long way to get beaten soundly by high seeds.

Region finish has nothing to do with who makes the playoffs. There are a lot of schools at this level who do not field a team( particuarly in the lower state. There is also a pretty big spread in competition level. In order to keep the two best teams in the division from playing in the first round, teams are seeded. I do not know if there are even enough teams int the lower state to fill the 16 team bracket. There are enough in the upper state to fill the bracket but some teams choose not to participate because they are not competetive with the higher seeded teams.

That's it—whoever enters gets in to AA/A; then they seed. Regions are essentially irrelevant for state playoffs in AA/A.