I never really dug into this before, but according to the SCHSL constitution, Article VIII, Section 2.A.2:
Schools may play teams such as college freshman, alumni or textile teams provided
these games are included on the regular schedule of the school and inclusion does
not cause the school to exceed the limits in number of regular season games
allowed.
In other words, it sounds like SCHSL teams are allowed to play non-high-school teams, but those games have to go down as part of the team's regular schedule, which is limited to 16 games (18 if they trade in the rights to one tournament.) However, I don't think those games can count toward region rank and playoff seeding, so I'm not sure how many high school teams would be willing to burn a regular-season match slot on a game that would only count as a "friendly" in the big picture. I could be wrong, but I think it will be much easier for them to find a full schedule of matches playing high school JV than trying to find 14 matches (full JV schedule starting this year) playing club-vs-high school.
