News for the Week of Oct. 31, 2011

Program Notes for the Week of 10/31/11:

In the next month or so, we will start to wrap up the season with various highlights and tidbits about the program.

Tough Schedule, Tough Conference:
Our season did not end as we would have liked it, but it turns out that we played a very tough schedule and we also play in one of the better girls soccer conferences in the state.  Our combined opponents winning percentage from the past season was 63%.  Not many schools in our area played a tougher schedule.  Nine of the 16 teams on our schedule were District finalists - Sylvania Northview, Strongsville, Berea, Brecksville, Solon, Avon, Westlake, Hathaway Brown, and Rocky River. Six of them ended up as District champs - Northview, Strongsville, Brecksville, Avon, Hathaway Brown, and Rocky River.

Teams that were in the bottom four of our conference - North Olmsted, Olmsted Falls, and Berea all won at least one playoff game. Olmsted Falls beat Elyria and us, of course and the surprise of the area was Berea who came in as #8 seed and knocked off St. Joseph Academy, Valley Forge, and North Royalton before falling to Strongsville.  Also, Brecksville won its District and Westlake with 12 wins was upset by Avon in their District final.    It is no wonder that every game on our conference schedule is now a struggle. There is a lot of soccer talent in the SWC.

Team Stats:
A few team stats to share with you are:

Goals For - 27   This was the lowest number of goals scored since the first two years of the program in 1993 & 1994 when we only won three games in two years.  The difficulty of the schedule had something to with this.

Goals Against - 36  Once again, the most goals that we have given up since the first two years of the program.  That was a tough combination to make a winning record with. It was probably an accomplishment to win 7 games with our schedule.

On the defensive side, we did have 7 shutouts during the year, all with Dana Strimbu in the goal.

We didn't protect our home turf very well as our record at home was 3-6-1.  Surprisingly, we did better on the road at 4-2-1.  In day games, we were 4-4-1 and in night games 3-4-1, so no real difference there.  Interestingly, we were 4-1-1 on grass and 3-7-1 on turf even though our home field is a turf field.  In conference, we were 4-2-1 and our out of conference record was 3-5-1.

Next week we will list individual stats.


Strongsville Game Video:
Initially, there were some technical problems with the video of our game vs. Strongsville, but they have been cleared up and the video is now available to be watched at :

http://ohiosportsnet.tv/home

Look under the archives section and we played on 10/3.  With this game and the games that were shown on the ALCS station (channel 95), this was the most games that we have had shown on T.V. in the history of the program. Another nice bonus for the girls this year.


Election Time:
I just want to remind everyone that one of own - John Crooks is running for a seat on the Board of Education in Avon Lake. He is the father of sophomore Amy Crooks.
His profile may be found at:

http://avonlake.patch.com/articles/candidate-profile-john-crooks-for-avon-lake-board-of-education

John has some very impressive educational credentials and look over his bio and see if he might be someone you would like to vote for.


Soccer Site of the Week:
We will continue with our spotlight of local premier clubs.  This week we will feature Cleveland Kickers which can be found at:

http://www.clevelandkickers.com/

A number of our girls play with this club and also Kiko Lopez coaches pre- high school girls with this club.  Check them out.