Substate Geographical Pairings

[Goal Scorer]

You can find the 2009 Geographical Pairings at the IAHSAA website.

Just a couple of observations.

3A - Substate 3, Substate 6, and Substate 8 appear to be loaded with multiple top 10 teams. Dowling and Hoover in the same grouping. Valley and Ankeny in the same grouping. Tough draws for those teams. On the opposite end of the spectrum - Substate 1 is weak, Substate 2 is weak, and Substate 4 is weak.

2A - Things seem more balanced in 2A. Substate 2 and Substate 8 look to be the deepest groupings. Both Norwalk and CR Xavier got decent draws, although DCG could challenge Norwalk.

1A - No idea here. I'm not going to pretend that I know much about these teams.

Thoughts?

This post was edited on 3/26 9:26 AM by Goal Scorer

 

[FutbolFan1]

At least it is a step in the right direction. Perfect? Not yet, but better. At least the top two seeds in each bracket get a bye based on performance and not some bizarre alphabetical grouping.

An ideal sub state would pay no attention to travel and have every team ranked for proper bracketing. But that will never happen. Hoping that this continues to improve so that geographic boundaries are extended a bit to even out talent a bit more. Also would be cool if the bottom 4 in each bracket would have performance made part of their pairings.

It's a work in progress....

 

[qcgymrat]

here's the link

http://www.iahsaa.org/soccer/09_3A_SOCCER_SUBSTATES.pdf

 

[EIHC_Fan]

Per 1a Substate Grouping - Substate 4 is loaded with Regina, Solon, and Assumption in the past has been decent.

As far as step in the right direction, I would differ since I am not seeing it since the groupings do not look much different other than there are three classes this year. Teams goals are to make it to state first and not see how far they can get through substate.

Work in progress.. here is a suggestion. Start to make a list of sub-state sites. If Boone wants to announce something, then they can announce these sites but wait to group and seed teams. This will allow flexibility on where to place the teams while getting commitments on fields up front.

 

[FutbolFan1]

The "step in the right direction" is just a step. 2 of the teams will be put in their bracket based on performance. That's a start, and better than it has been.

I do agree with your ideas, they are good ones.

We can only hope that this gets enough positive feedback that IAHSAA continues to work on substate and state to keep improving it.

 

[Rockeyes]

Substate 4 has Bettendorf, who almost as dominant in 3A as Iowa City West, so I'd say Substate 4 is NOT weak.

 

[Goal Scorer]

Bettendorf and who else? Who will give Bettendorf a challenge from that substate?

 

[FutbolFan1]

I'm sure Bettendorf fans cheered when they saw substate 4. No disrespect intended to the hard working players and coaches on the other 5 teams in their bracket. Bettendorf would have to seriously self destruct to not walk through this substate.

Which could be a bad thing for Bettendorf. A few easy games right before State is not how you want to tune up a team and get them ready. Last thing you want is low intensity and overconfident players.

 

[Rockeyes]

There is rarely anyone in Bettendorf's substate that challenges them in Soccer. PV maybe has once in the past 10 years, maybe Dav Central, or west, however generally yes, it is a cakewalk (to State) for Bett each year

 

[Bluejay76]

The fact that the state was finally able to go to 3 classes really helps out. With the 2-class system, and the concentration of good teams in the metropolitan areas, the early-round matchups of great teams were inevitable. By adding the third class, it spreads the top teams out more. The state will always use geography as its first criterium, especially considering the current state of the economy and the need to keep travel costs to a minimum, but I do think things are better this year than last year.