Quote: can a MS coach or a JV coach take a non Club player and "develop" them into being able to successfully compete with a Northwestern or Fort Mill or Wando or Irmo or Mauldin or Dorman....and the answer is no. Never in heck.
I take exception to this statement. My middle school guys, 7th and 8th only, played in the highest bracket of the Irmo JV End of Season against Dutch Fork JV, Irmo JV, and White Knoll JV. Ask them if I have them prepared for high school.
DF was goofing off before our game thinking hey a MS this should be easy. THey scored on a PK in the 1st to lead 1-0. It was on a break away late in the 2nd that sealed it at 2-0. WE controlled the ball and played on their half of the field.
Irmo is great. They put 3 goals on us in the 1st 5 minutes (2 corners and a throw in near the corner). But we played hard and physical and an Irmo kid got frustrated and got a red card. We played great from box to box. And we even scored on them right before half. We lost 3-1. But raise your hand if you scored on Irmo JV's 1st string. They are a great team.
WHite Knoll came out puching us around and intimidated us in the first half as we were down 3-0 but we scored to open the 2nd and had many opportunities to come back.
Dont tell me I do not prepare my guys for those teams when the WK coach comes up to me and says that Spring Valley will be very good with these guys in the future. Remember just 7th and 8th graders going toe to toe with the top 3 teams in the Yellow bracket.
I was blessed to have Antione Parris play on my team for 1 year. When Dave Clark made a comment in the paper that middle school soccer did not teach physical play I turned it up. We try to play JV teams but they dont want a middle school team. This goes for both the boys and girls teams. We love the underdog role and want to beat these high school JV kids.
If you want these teams to be good they have to play good teams. Get the coaches involved in the SCHSSCA and the clinics. Let them play higher competition and stop being scared to schedule them. We are treated just like a JV team.
Coach JB, I don't know you from Adam.....but my team lost to Irmo 1-0 in the finals of the pre-season tournament. I meant no disrespect to your coaching or your team. It sounds like you had a fine young team.
My points.......are that your team was the exception and not the rule. My 4A jv team played and beat a 1A varsity team twice. It doesn't mean a thing other than we were better than that one team.
My guess would be......that with all those top young 7th-8th graders....many of them play club. I had the good fortune to watch Antoine Parris in a playoff game this Spring and he was a very good soccer player. I hear he is an Academy player now. My guess is he wasn't introduced to soccer at the age of 12-13.
