It's Over...

Nice job this year Joe!

Naperville Central spanked WWS 4-1 during the regular season and have 1 less loss than them...why are they two spots behind them?

That was a flip of a coin. North beat Central, who beat Wheaton South, who split with North. Wheaton South went through a bad stretch during the season, but was very solid before and after that stretch.

End of the season rankings should be about who is the best soccer when it counts….the end of the year at the Illinois State Tournament. Based on this how can you possibly put Neuqua Valley ahead of Lyons? They beat them last week. Rankings are about who is better and when they met last week the 1-0 win proved they were a better team that night and that is all that counts!! I guess the other question to ask is this? Hey Nequa and Lyons….what would you rather have the State Championship or the #1 ranking in Joe Trost’s Blog?

On another note: How awesome was it to see the huge crowd that turned out for the 3A final? Both Lyons and Lake Zurich should be proud of that and the effort they put in to get there. It was great to see two talented and hard working teams have such a great atmosphere for the final!

Each year, there are always good crowds for the final and that's great. You have your thoughts, but final rankings are about the entire season which is why they are called final rankings. Weekly rankings are each week. If Tiger Woods loses the Masters and wins everything else, he doesn't fall from No. 1. If someone loses the U.S. Open, they don't fall. There were a lot of good teams this year, but Neuqua had the best season overall. That doesn't take away what anyone did, it's just a final ranking for the season.

After watching LT's games last week, I got to thinking about a Neuqua Valley-Lake Zurich match-up. So who would win that game? I felt that LZ did a better job of trying to build an attack, but may be a little slower in transition. Would be an intersting game, as both teams are high pressure direct teams.

Final rankings are about as useless as a football bat! Doesn't matter who had the "best" regualr season, it matters who wins state. Does it matter who is the #1 NCAA basketball team before the tournament? Well a little, at least the NCAA might seed them a #1 but it counts for little else much like your rankings......

Joe - While I don't always agree with you (case in point with the final rankings), I do respect the fact that you have a solid reason behind everything you do. I always assumed the team that wins the state tourney is the BEST team in the state. Looking back on years past, I realize this isn't ALWAYS true. Otherwise, we would need to rank teams based upon their IHSA state tourney finish. Therefore, teams like Schaumburg and Eisenhower would NEED to be ranked in the top 8 (clearly not the case) while teams like Naperville North, Naperville Central, Conant, Palatine, Geneva, Morton, and Hinsdale Central would NEED to be ranked 17-32 in the state. Clearly, neither you or the IHSA has it figured out just right...but overall...you are more accurate!

Joe, you made a giant blunder and missed a major assumption. Tiger Woods has built his own history and therefore retains his #1 spot even when slumping (this was not the case in his early career). Neuqua has not established that level of credability. True they may have won 2 out of 3 against Lyons but couldn't muster even a worthy scoring opportunity when it really counted. Players were outplayed and coaches were out coached. Lyons is the true #1 (regular and post season) and all you have done is to water down your rankings thus exhibiting a lack of understanding when it comes to history and soccer. I have very little doubt that NSCAA and ESPN will get it right when it comes to national rankings and you will see that Lyons is the highest ranked team in Illinois.

Prior to watching the finals, I would have argued that the winner of the LT vs. LZ game should be ranked #1. After watching the game, I now agree that NV should have that honor. Giving the #1 ranking to a team like LT that plays such ugly defensive soccer would be a crime. LT absolutely earned the state championship, but not the #1 ranking.

In response to an earlier post, a NV vs. LZ match-up would have been an instant classic.

LT is the best soccer team in the state if not the world!!

To the writer who said that LT played ugly soccer, I guess he/she is not a fan of the Rocky movies. The LT strategy is right out of those movies. Let you opponent wear themselves out trying to beat the crap out of you. Stay in the game, and attack at the end. Works incredibly well against high pressure teams like NV and LZ, who like to run players at the ball.
LT would sit back and take away the channels and space. The two axioms of defense are 1. Make them do what you want them to do and 2. Take away all an attacker's space. SD of NV commented after their game that he felt like they were being suffocated.
When you have an intelligent back line and a keeper who is strong in the air and a good shot blocker, you can play defense the way it is meant to be played.
It looked more like how the rest of the world plays winning soccer than typical HS play.

As predicted both ESPN Rise and NSCAA have LT ranked above NV. Apparently winning the IHSA crown has meaning in the eyes of many, not just a few. Note that NSCAA has LT at #22 and NV not in the top 25 and ESPN has LT #17 and NV #18. How can a team that gets that level of national recognition be ranked #2 in the state? Somebody has it wrong that is for sure.

Convert, LT's defensive strategy was employed against NV and LZ to neutralize their outstanding attack. It worked. Both of those teams relied on long kicks over the top. Some would say that is ugly, but it was what those teams thought would be most effective offensive strategy. In most games LT relied on midfield ball control which was far from ugly. There is no question that NV played excellent soccer and was and fun to watch, but they're not #1.