SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Boys Varsity Soccer 5A?

Promotion/relegation would be better than adding 5A. But, as has been discussed, it's not practical.

It does make sense, given the size and dominance of some of the high-end 4A schools in SC. Population divisions among 1A, 2A, and 3A schools are well-defined, with a high and low cutoff point for each; you know that every school within that division will be within those approximate parameters. With 4A, however, there is no top end cutoff; we have schools with around 1500 students competing against schools with 3500. Now, I agree that club training and other feeder programs do make the big difference in individual athletes, and a 1500-student school should be able to field a quality team of 20 or so with the proper experience; however, having an extra 2000 or so students to pick from can increase the odds of coming up with some gems. Having a separate division for those schools who have 70-80 to show up for tryouts would do a lot to level the playing fields--especially for JV programs. It's hard for a small 4A school to generate interest in a JV team made up of primarily 7th and 8th graders when they face big schools whose JV teams are made up of the top 20 of the 50 or so would-be varsity players who didn't quite make the cut. Just some thoughts.

Coach Chass,

On the girl's side, if a player is decent in the 9th or 10th grade....they are usually on the varsity. Thus, even with the big 4A schools, the JV teams are dominated by 7th & 8th graders.

Hurst, wish that were true in my world; last fall, I coached a U17 club team of better-than-decent players--players I'd be proud to have on my varsity squad--a majority of whom were still playing JV for a ranked 4A school and were "on the bubble" trying to make varsity for this season. Putting a 7th and 8th grade team up against these girls would be pretty much sending them to the slaughterhouse. If you have 70+ high school players try out for varsity...let's say out of those half of them actually have some talent (say, 35), but you only want to keep 20 for varsity--what are you going to do with the other 15? Turn them out to pasture? Nope, you put them on your JV squad so they can get some PT, stay in the program and prepare to replace your graduating seniors for next year.