Interstate Tourny

[Footy365]

Michigan? They're a little too far away, but I'd say Florida, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi just to shut the people up who think MS has better soccer than LA.

[hdkjga]

I heard to public schools in TX don't play in the winter like we do here, but I heard they are rediculously awesome. I would love to see how our top teams match up.

[Footy365]

Didn't Jesuit go to a Texas tourney and win all their games. Just found it online, they did go and for anyone who's interested here are the scores straight from Jesuit's website:

Fri-Sat, Dec. 5-6 Viking Cup Trnmnt Champs Fort Worth, Texas
Jesuit Won 5-0 Fri, Dec. 5 Hstn St. Thomas Episc. Viking Stadium 1:00 pm
Jesuit Won 2-1 Fri, Dec. 5 Ft. Worth Nolan Cath. Viking Stadium 7:00 pm
Jesuit Won 2-0 Fri, Dec. 6 Dallas Greenhill Viking Stadium 11:00 am
Jesuit Won 3-0 Fri, Dec. 6 Ft. Worth Country Day Viking Stadium 4:00 pm

[Twerk19]

Yeah Michigan is far up, but I know a guy from there, and he said they have some realy good teams....you're right footy I would love to rub it all in Mississippi's face if we beat them. They think they're awesome. We played a team from Texas in the St. Louis Tourny. They were a 2A school that won their distrcit for like 6 years in a row and got to the playoffs and did great every year. They played so well that they moved up to 4-A and started playing there. They do well in the 4-A class even though they're so small. They had a lot of talent.

[Twerk19]

Wow, Jesuit is great. It would be cool to get the best players from the state to play in a tournament. Like the tope 44 from Louisiana battling it out with the top 44 from other states.

[Twerk19]

I know that Florida has some kick-butt teams. This team called Niceville was really awesome. They have been undefeated in their district for the past 5 years. I think they were sponsored because they all had Predators. Huge team and lots of speed. I would love to see more FLorida teams. I know that a Califronia team or two were supposed to come down during the St. Louis tourny but they didn't have the money. I play Rec. soccer and 2 teams from Colorado are coming down this weekend to play a few teams from the area. The must be really good to come down here or else have lots of money. No reason to come all the way down here and lose.

[hdkjga]

Jesuit played all private schools from TX, I am talking about the public schools. Lafayette played Nolan Catholic out of Ft. Worth and beat them 5-0......why was Jesuit's game so close with them, that team wasn't that good. Anyway, I talked to some refs at the St. Louis tourney and they said that the public schools start in late Feb and play district through March. They say most of the teams don't speak much english and they said some schools ditched their football program for the soccer program because everyone likes soccer better. How cool is that!!

[Twerk19]

Hey, that sounds great to me. Soccer needs to get more respect.

[maddie86]

my cousins school is in coppell texas and they are ranked #1 in the nation

[goat]

manchurianman said:

Twerk19 said:
you're right footy I would love to rub it all in Mississippi's face if we beat them. They think they're awesome


Why would Mississippi think they have a better HS soccer program than Louisiana? I would venture to guess that there aren't near as many schools with a soccer program in MS. as there are here. Judging from their performance at past regionals and ODP their premiere program is certainly no better, if as good as our program. Speaking of that Louisiana also doesn't fare too well at regionals against the better soccer teams from other Region III states.

Unless they have recently been added there are no amateur soccer programs at all in Mississippi. They do have an overall higher level of college soccer than Louisiana because they have a larger number of varsity men's teams.

wow a positive post on louisiana soccer. twice we have agreed on something manchurianman, i would rather play the texas teams because overall they are much stronger than the miss. teams.

[ShreveDad]

I think our very best high school teams would do fine against the best teams from Texas. Shreve played Longview and lost 1-0 in a good match. Longview made it to the 3rd round last year before losing to Plano. This year the coach thought they were better and was hoping to advance further in the playoffs, which I think takes 6 wins to win it all. Texas allows players to play club and high school at the same time. Texas begins play in Jan and continues thru April. I am pretty sure most of the high school tournaments are in Jan and early Feb with district matches being played in late Feb and March. The district matches are usually played during the week which leaves weekends for club play. Most top level Texas high schools are huge schools. 3500 students+ Also, they have so many more kids playing club soccer. Louisiana has 9 U16 Boys club teams. I bet there are over 50 in Dallas alone, not to speak of the rest of the state. I think if you put Lafayette and Jesuit in a league with the Texas top 8 teams, I think each would win a couple of matches. I'm sure each of those teams are composed of very good select players. Our state teams don't do well overall in the regionals, but some teams like the Burn and a few New Orleans teams have advanced out of bracket in the last couple of years.

[hdkjga]

what about FLa. teams at regionals?....how are they faring now.....they used to make the semis normally, but one of the TX teams would knock them out...I haven't kept up on the regional aspect, usually just local and state wide aside from international.

[m]

Georgia has a really good soccer program throughout the state but particularly around the Atlanta Metro in the burbs. I know their Concorde Fire program has been top notch for many years. Also their Metro North and United Quest programs have teams that do well in regionals. Their High Schools don't play until the spring though so they wouldn't be able to come in for a tournament.

[Footy365]

Hmm, Texas schools ditched football for soccer. That suprises me with all their interest in high school football. But that's cool that they did. Another thing are Texas's public schools seperate from the catholic schools.

[hdkjga]

Yes, TX public and private schools are separate. This is the first year that private and public will play each other. Strake Jesuit and another private school will be playing with the publc school sthis year. I think the private schools have their own league that plays through the winter. The public schools start doing tourneys starting at the beginning of Feb. and play district through March. I think their main state tournament is in April or May sometime.


This is the info that I received from the refs that were at St. Louis. They were from the Houston area.

[socjoc]

Private schools (TAPPS) have already held their state championships. Public schools are only halfway through district schedules right now.

Strake Jesuit in Houston would be no match for New Orlean's Jesuit. Conversely, Lafayette etal is no match for Klein, Kingwood, or Woodlands, whose student populations average over 3600+. All three teams ranked nationally in top ten. I do not think even your best teams would hold up to Houston's best teams.

Player for player, though, Louisiana has a huge pool of excellent talent that should get more college exposure than they do...LA clubs don't emphasize that enough for their players (as we do here in TX) or sell their players enough. Club rules, HS is very secondary - and yes, we play club all year long. The LA club teams usually do not fare well in Texas tourneys against the Texans or Classics teams. The Houstonians - a pure scholarship primarily Hispanic club - is awesome.

There is no 5-A school that I am aware of in Houston or Dallas that has scrapped football for futbol...are you kidding? With the football mindset in this state? Sadly, No way.

[hdkjga]

sorry, thref had a son there and they said that a public school in Dallas did that......he said he was serious. Oh well, we can only dream I guess.

Also, I have seen Houstonians play some of the top clubs in Louisiana and some Louisiana teams can hang and beat Classics, Houstonians, and the Texans. However as a whole I think we would get blown away.

Also, Jesuit is ranked nationally right now as of 2-16-04...they were #10.

I think Lafayette was #10 in the poll before that and Jesuit was around the 5 spot. These were the winter rankings though.

[Footy365]

In the January 26 boys national high school soccer rankings both Jesuit and Lafyette were ranked in the top ten in the nation at 4th and 10th repsectively, however big the texas schools are I wouldn't write off the Louisiana teams, I'm pretty sure that the games would be pretty competetive if the top teams from LA play the top teams from Texas, All the top teams from LA are pretty evenly matched so if Jesuit could compete im pretty sure all the top ten could.

[socjoc]

hdkjga, I cannot speak with authority about the Dallas public schools. Perhaps one did scrap football. I cannot imagine it was a 5-A, though.

Would be great to get some of the top teams there to come to the HS showcases here. Will be glad to provide websites for any interested coaches. Timing is the problem as you are in the heat of district when the tournaments here are scheduled (January), and when you have your showcases, our public schools haven't even had tryouts yet. Isn't Florida HS on roughly the same timing at LA?

I am also referring to the club results against PL Texans/Classics - there are 2 or 3 levels at each age group. Both NOSA and Lafayette struggled at last years regionals against TX PL teams. Not sure about U18s. However, believe some U18s saw the same results in Dallas at Labor Day. Think NO has taken a step to be more competitive by combining some of the clubs.

You are right about the rankings. From Houston, currently only Kingwood (9) tops Jesuit (10), but the season here is early. If the rankings are a key, it would seem that Florida (averaging 2-3 teams in top ten) has stronger soccer than Tx and LA. Will be interesting to see the 4/12 ranking when all districts are complete.