Thoughts on getting routed in a high school sport contest

my oct 15, 2014 comment to this thread
http://toledotalk.com/cgi-bin/tt.pl/article/184363/15Oct2014/Eastwood_vs_Rogers_girls_soccer

For Eastwood coaches, it's tough to play players who normally see little action and then tell them, "Don't play."

I see no problem with the score. That's life in sports. Sometimes, you get routed.

During my senior year of high school basketball, we began the year with a decent record. I started at guard. But then injuries and a suspension wrecked our key players after only a few games, so I got moved from guard to forward. At 5' 11" and maybe 145 pounds, I struggled with guarding opponents who were significantly larger.

Until we got used to our new lineup changes, we got beat easily. One team defeated us 74-20 on our home court, during the week, so I had to go to school the next day. And this occurred before high school basketball implemented the three-point shot.

Our record was only 4-17. I also played baseball, and we went 22-4 in my senior year. I got to "enjoy" both extremes that year. The beauty of playing sports.

I assume that a mercy rule does not exist in Ohio high school soccer.

If it's an emotionally destructive event for the losing team, then the high school athletic association needs to implement a mercy rule. The concerned parents should lobby the governing body to implement the change.

This fall, Ohio started a new mercy rule change for high school football. A blowout game, however, is not shortened to three quarters. Once the score differential reaches a certain level, the game clock is not stopped.

Obviously, that type of change does not work in soccer, since the game clock is normally not stopped, I think.

From this Wikipedia page :

In United States high school soccer, most states use a mercy rule that ends the game whenever one team is ahead by 10 or more goals at any point from halftime onward.

I'm more impressed that Rogers offers soccer than the goals scored by Eastwood.

Hopefully, the Rogers girls are proud that they are playing a sport. They get to experience the team camaraderie. It's easier to skip playing a sport and spend that time doing something else. And hopefully, the Rogers girls are learning, working, and improving, regardless of the scores.

I do not subscribe to this thinking:

• "you beat these young kids spirit who may never play soccer again because of it"
• "some Rogers players may never want to play the sport again."

Would people say the same thing if these were boys instead of girls?

First, these are high school students, not elementary school kids. I think that the high school girls are strong enough to deal with this.

And with all of the other bullshit drama that exists in the life of a high school student, getting crushed in a soccer match is probably easy to handle.

Maybe concerned outsiders should find out when and where the Rogers girls soccer team plays again and then show up and support them.

#sports