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Call me crazy, call me nuts - call me a moron (many have) - but looking at Tuesday's Class AA sectional semifinals has me thinking - the Neuqua Valley Sectional isn't the toughest this year.
Yes, it has top-ranked Neuqua Valley, Naperville Central and Naperville North. The wild card is Benet, which was one of the best teams in area in 2006. Under the leadership of Henry Wind, the Redwings are always dangerous. But this isn't one of their best teams ever.
Now let's look at the Wheaton Academy Sectional - St. Charles North, Wheaton-Warrenville South, Geneva and Wheaton Academy.
Top-to-bottom, I think that's the toughest.
And even the Lyons Sectional with Downers Grove South, Hinsdale Central, Morton and Lyons is pretty solid.
What do you think?
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Joe,
Yes these sectionals are tough, but I think if you looked at the Lake Zurich sectional top to bottom, throughout the four regionals, that had the most depth. These other sectionals, the teams had at least 1 game that was a blowout. In LZ, every single game, with the exception of Palatine's 3-0 win and Barrington's 4-0 win were close. Top to bottom, 1-18, that sectional I beleive wins my vote. Heck, if Jacobs a 17 seed, can win 3 games just to make it to the Regional, and they were 1-9 in the Fox Valley Valley division this year, that shows the parity in that area of the state for soccer. Palatine over LZ, Barrington taken to the limit by Hersey again, CLC takes Stevenson to limit, BG took Deerfield to limit, CLS and Cary shootout, then the Regional finals all decided in OT or by 1 goal except for Barringtons. Just wanted to bring attention to the great soccer played in this area of the state...
TROST RESPONDS: You bring up some good points. I was focusing more on the four teams left in the sectional.
Joe
You give the Naperville area way to much credit. I do not recall you covering them this year, but once again, the Naperville sectional winner will lose to the Wheaton / St. Charles sectional winner for the 3rd year in a row. Here is why, NC is overrated and can not win a defensive restart and NV, NN and Benet can not play soccer but are good on restarts. So, any of them will lose in the supers again. Geneva is my pick to make it downstate out of this super as after a tough start, they have things fixed and are rolling right now.
TROST RESPONDS: You need to read the paper more often - 50 cents or free at Suntimes.com. When you have three teams ranked by a lot of people in the Top 10 in the sectional semifinals, I don't how you can say they are receiving too much credit.