Originally Posted by Anonymous
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It was a great one. Man Valley pulled it out 10-9 in OT, now they have the tall task of playing Northeast HS of Anne Arundel County, who beat Duval 8-7. This MPSSAA system is a joke.

2A has 1. Man Valley vs 8. Northeast (AA)

4/5 CMW vs Decatur

2. Middletown vs coin flip lost of 7. Hereford or Eastern Tech

3. Calvert vs Coin flip winner of 6. Herford or Eastern Tech

Calvert, Eastern Tech, and Northeast (AA) can't touch any of those other schools left standing, let alone Century and Glenelg. There has to be a better way.

What is the better way? The system is geographically based. There is no easy way to do it when Western MD is 5 hrs from Ocean City and Elkton is 4 hrs from California. There are almost 300 high schools in MD, the only way to do it is geographically. The regions are seeded based on records. Not everyone can play the same teams, so you make the best of your schedule and see where you end up. If you play tougher competition, you risk losses, but also challenge your team more. The past few years, all 4 defending state champs have played a 4 team tourney in season so the champs can face each other.

If you make it out of your region, they re-seed the winners for the state tournament, to try to get the better teams on opposite sides. We all know that the majority of top lax clubs are in the central MD area, so it makes sense that the top high school programs will be as well. And the top schools and top coaches will continue to put out good teams vs those with lesser coaching. So unfortunately, top teams will be in the same region in many cases. It is what it is.

Just dont get all the detest for the system - what is the better option?[/quote]

The better option is using more than just overall record to reseed at the final 8. Teams that play terrible schedules will have a good record and get a higher seed and then get destroyed in the semifinals or finals. They need to incorporate strength of schedule into the reseeding process and not just for lax- it is a problem in other sports as well.