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After sitting in the shop the past couple of weeks, the Waubonsie Valley state title bus is finally warming up.
Amazing what happens when a team is healthy and has everyone on the field. As it showed Tuesday during a tough 2-1 victory over previously-unbeaten St. Charles North, the Warriors are hands down the team to beat this spring.
With all of its players healthy, there is not a team in the state that can beat this squad. Post this in locker rooms, blow my words up or put them on a billboard along I-88 - I don't care. The facts are the facts. Talent wise on paper, this team is better than any other around. Yes, Neuqua, Naperville Central, St. Charles North, Lake Forest and others are very, very good - but when you figure in experience, too, the Warriors grade out better than the rest.
Do you now agree - as I said at the start - the only thing that will stop Waubonsie Valley from winning its third consecutive IHSA tournament in June is if lightning strikes its bus on the way to North Central College in Naperville?
One thing I do know is if the Warriors beat Naperville Central on Saturday, they will return to their second home next Monday - No. 1 in the Sun-Times poll. Why? Because they are the No. 1 team - hands down.
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Oh Joe..... there you go again about your top ten list that that you said you really don't care about.
Lets just wait for the playoffs and then we'll find out.
Or possibly we should just forget about the playoffs and give WV the "Joe Trost" state championship trophy right now. Just think of all the bus trips that the state would save money on, to say nothing of money for officals. And just think of all that extra time the players would have to study for finals.
Red and Black.... that is the smartest thing I have ever read on this blog. AMEN.... toss out the state trophy...and lets have Trost pick the winner now and be done with it (well he already has...WV all the way), let the girls concentrate on school and State Cup with their club teams.
Joe:
I just went over your girls soccer ranking. I do not see enough games to qualify for a rebuttal BUT.
I took the standard soccer points system and did the math (mostly correct by my recolections). Using the three points for a win, one for a tie and 0 for a loss, I came up with a Earned Respect ranking. It goes like this. Remember these girls EARNED these points.
Rank/ school / % of total possible points.
1. Carmel 92.8%
2. Huntley 90.7
3. Loyola 85.9
4. Lake Forest 82.2
5. Napervill C. 81.5
6. St. Charles 80
7. Glenbrook S. 78
8. Naperville N. 77.7
9. Nequa Valley 77.08
10 Waubonsie Valley 76.9
Richard,
If you take your top ten and turn it upside down, that is probably closer to reality and this coming from a Northsider. Too bad that some sectionals are so strong (Bolingbrook) and others so weak (Evanston) that better teams will be gone in the third game of the playoffs.
Hersey,Barrington,Lake Zurich, and Fremd? What's up..
Richard,
This is quite interesting. The question I have is, how do you determine strength of schedule in your rankings? Does Carmel play as tough a schedule as Nequa? If not, then wouldn't it make sense that Carmel would earn a greater percentage of their points? Would that change the accuracy of your rankings and how they reflect the strength of the team?
matt - yes to Barrington, & Fremd - have not seen Hersey, but LZ - not this year.
Richard - where do you take head to head into consideration. LF beats Carmel 3-0, but ranks behind.
Joe... I will fully admit that WV is a very fine team. But I see a lot of parity this year. I see at least 15 or 16 teams that have the talent to make it to the final 4 and at least 8 that can win the whole thing depending on if they come to play. ( And , of course, you really don't cover the central Illinois and Southern Illinois teams and there are some very fine teams down there.)
Personally I think the team that will win it all this year will do two things .
1) Play solid defense.
2) Get a good number of "bench" players into the game for a time so that the "starters" are fresh in the last 10 minutes of each half.
I agree 110 percent, there is a lot of parity this year and we are seeing more that every year because girls soccer as a whole has improved and the average player is 110 percent better than they were 10 years ago. I will tell you I talk to coaches from the middle and downstate every week. I was just talking to a coach on Friday, and he said there is not a strong downstate 3A team compared to past years (meaning large school). There is a solid, and probably the leading state contender in 2A.