Dist 3 Dist 9

well once again we see that lafayette and new orleans lead the way. sorry guys i know most of the rest of the state is sick of hearing about dist 3 and 9 but lets face it NO OTHER DIST has won a title in at least the last 12 years. 6 out of 8 teams remaining are from dist 3 or 9 we already know that at least one of the finalist will be from one of those two dists. so tell me why this is. i have seen good soccer from the north shore, BR and even north LA. but why do these two dist dominate? what are your thoughts?

[levski6]

a whole lot more players to choose from

[flashgordon0123]

when you are forced to play good teams all year, it makes you better, teams on the northshore and such really dont have too much competition to improve themselves over the district season

[Ghandi]

It comes down to CSC and NOSA.

what do you mean? the talent in lafayette is devided by five or six schools. terulings, stm, como, acadiana, lafayette, cro. i know shreveport is a much larger city and has the same amount of schools so i don't buy it! and think about it all of the teams i metioned with the exception of como are or would still be in the playoffs (stm). so look at how many great teams come from lafayette but sheveport is a larger city.

[tsumi77]

ghandi said:

It comes down to CSC and NOSA.

... could not agree more!

[upper90]

Everyone knows that Lafayette and New Oreleans have much better soccer programs than we do in Shreveport. More coaches, more popularity to the sport, just more everything. Well except bad refs!

[alfred]

tsumi77 said:

ghandi said:

It comes down to CSC and NOSA.

... could not agree more!

The select programs in these two areas are the best in the state. I may be wrong, but state champions in high school most probably come from the same area as state champs in select for that year, boys and girls.

[Pitchstalker]

rose colored glasses....no secret here....Jesuit, BM, and Rummel....students can CHOOSE to go there...the better players are "usually" from affluent backgrounds that coule afford the Select programs and can afford the private schools. Laffy areas....students can choose which school they go to....because of the way the school district has set up its high schools....you telling me that a really great soccer player from the select program is going to choose to go to a school other than Acadiana, Lafayette, or Carencro knowing the soccer programs they have there? Probably not...there gonna go where the talent is...everyone likes winning. The argument will come up that BR has a HUGE population to choose from....yea...but look at the demographics...majority of population is lower socioeconomic background that doesn't usually play soccer....other than that...the REAL public schools have to take the players that are IN BETWEEN OUR DISTRICT LINES...with no exceptions....Ascension Parish from a coaching standpoint would look really good if they had the same set up as Lafayette parish...as would a lot of other districts/schools...but the players MUST go to the school they are districted to....couple that with the fact that the Select programs are good and you get your answer.

[LafayetteDad]

ghandi said:

It comes down to CSC and NOSA.

In fairness, I think you need to add Lakeview and LFC. Don't forget that the Burn (Joey Balfour, Will Todd, Jonathan Foreman and a certain Joe Lapira for example) was an LFC team as is Arsenal which is contributing many great sophmores.

[LafayetteDad]

To whomever fixed this board to change the first part of the name of Thierry Henry's team to a euphemism for a derrière, please stop it.

[ShreveDad]

Large schools + freedom to attend the school of choice + excellent premier programs = successful high school soccer programs

[Veteran]

I agree with Pitch's comments and will add a little about Baton Rouge.

1. In N.O. and Laf you have a large pool of great players who go to about 5 schools, maybe less in their area. If you look at BR, many of the club players are spread out among 10 - 15 different schools. The result is 1 or 2 club players per school. Then you are building a team around 1 or 2 club players with some better Rec players. This makes it hard to compete with a N.O. or Laf school that has 5 -10 club players per class.

2. You are also seeing the end result of a problem that occurred in BR in the mid to late '90's. This is when the club team was split into 2 teams. While this was not the whole problem, it did water down the talent, but more importantly split the good coaches up. The affect was less development, less kids participating, because of low quality and many kids traveling to N.O. and Laf to play club just to play on a good team. The end result is a lack of quality players coming thru the ranks who eventually end up play HS soccer. To compound the problem, Laf and N.O. did an excellent job of beefing up their #'s of quality players and coaches and developed their kids at the lower levels at this same time.

This cycle is now ending to some extent for BR. Since the club team has now consolidated back into 1 program, you are seeing them compete for more club state championships and you are seeing more quality players coming to high school soccer. Look at the Div II and 3 playoff brackets this year. Also if you look at graduating Seniors in Dist 4, not many of them are club players. Many of the club players at these schools are 9 & 10 graders.

I think you will see a leveling affect across all Div in the next few years.

[Bish]

lafayettedad said:

To whomever fixed this board to change the first part of the name of Thierry Henry's team to a euphemism for a derrière, please stop it.

Who? Arsenal? What are you talking about?

[LafayetteDad]

Yes, that is what I am talking about. If you look at my first post on this thread, you read bottomnal instead of A-R-S-E-N-A-L, which is also the name of the U-17 LFC team I was actually refering to.

[Bish]

Why do you have such a hard time typing the word Arsenal?

Arsenal
Arsenal
Arsenal
Arsenal

What's so hard about that?

Seems like you have some kind of butt or "bottom" fetish or something.

[LafayetteDad]

Arsenal

[LafayetteDad]

See, it did it again. Saaaay, is this some kind of inside joke I am not aware of? Huuuuummm, could be.

[Pitchstalker]

Also extremely interesting to note that in Div. I and Div III that 15 out of 16 schools in the quarterfinals are EITHER Private schools or "choice of schools" (i.e. Lafayette Parish) Div II doesn't have that many private schools, I don't believe, and that would account for the lack there.

[Bish]

lafayettedad said:

See, it did it again. Saaaay, is this some kind of inside joke I am not aware of? Huuuuummm, could be.

No jokes. I think you may have some OCD with when you try and type the word "Arsenal." Maybe you have to type bottomnal instead?