Up & Coming Weekly

May 15, 2018

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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MAY 16-22, 2018 UCW 29 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Eli O'Neal Jack Britt • Basketball • Junior O'Neal has a grade point average of 3.5. He enjoys basketball, math and riding the bicycle. Summer Powell Gray's Creek • Softball • Sophomore Powell has a 3.83 grade point average. She has been chosen to play for the Region 4 team in this summer's Powerade State Games. Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop congratulates these amazing scholar athletes of the week and invites them to the Rocket Fizz Store at 1916 Skibo Rd. to receive a FREE gift recognizing their achievement! www.rocketfizz.com Help for weak conference schedules by EARL VAUGHAN JR. e N.C. High School Athletic Association play- offs in a number of team sports began last week, and schools anxiously awaited the reveal of the playoff brackets that would be seeded using the process incorporating the statewide rankings calcu- lated by MaxPreps. Two teams with especially high expectations were the girls soccer squad from Terry Sanford and the softball team from Cape Fear. Both completed the regular season with perfect records. But when the rankings came out, Ter- ry Sanford was only seeded third among the soccer teams in the Eastern half of the state. Cape Fear fared better, but like Terry Sanford, was behind teams that suffered losses on their overall records and also took the third seed. So why the lowered rankings for both? e answer lies in something called strength of schedule. One of the critical factors incorpo- rated into the ranking process is how good the teams you play against are. If you'll take a look at the MaxPreps statewide rankings, you'll see they've got a low opinion of the teams Terry Sanford and Cape Fear faced this season. Of the top 20 soccer teams in North Carolina in the MaxPreps 3-A soccer rankings, Terry San- ford was the only one with a negative strength of schedule. Cape Fear and Hillsborough Cedar Ridge are the only top 20 3-A softball teams with negative strength of schedule ratings. A big part of the problem for both Cape Fear and Terry Sanford is the teams they are forced to play in the Patriot Athletic Conference. Twice a year, both the Colt softball team and the Bulldog soccer team are forced to line up against multiple league op- ponents with really bad overall records. In games where both teams often win by the mercy rule, they take a beating in the strength of schedule computations and it drags them down in the seeding for when it really counts, the state playoffs. Is there a cure, since it appears statewide rankings and strength of schedule calculations aren't going to be disappearing anytime soon? Possibly, but it's a complicated one and could create another headache for some other schools. ere have been informal conversations among some county coaches and athletic directors in sports where teams play each other twice in the conference to make a radical change in the conference sched- ule. e change would be to just play one conference game with each team in the league and possibly even eliminate the conference tournament. What does that accomplish? For the schools with serious designs on the state playoffs, it gives them up to six or seven more games they can schedule, allowing them to shop around the region and state and try to find nonconference matchups with competitive programs that wouldn't take the air out of their strength of schedule. But then you've got the other side of the coin. What happens to those conference teams with sub-par programs that suddenly lose half their conference slate? How can you guar- antee them enough games to fill out a schedule? Would they be limited to trying to find other struggling teams to play against? ese discussions have been completely informal so far, and no one is proposing anything concrete. But I think it's at least worth exploring, as long as both strong and weak programs can be assured of getting enough games to fill the schedule and charge admission. at's because paying the bills is crucial, and you've got to have a full slate of games to do that, even for a small crowd. e other option, and this is the better one but would take a lot more work to accomplish, would be to upgrade the struggling teams in the various sports that are dragging down strength of schedule for the other ones. is whole thing may be a knee-jerk reaction to the problem, but whatever is done, it's obvious coaches and athletic directors need to be thinking outside the box long term and trying to find an answer to this problem. e days of just putting one cookie-cutter schedule template together for all sports are over. If seeding and strength of schedule are going to be a part of the playoff process annually, it has to be ad- dressed in the schedule process sport by sport to give everyone a fair chance of the best ranking possible. A big part of the problem for Cape Fear and Terry Sanford is they are forced to play in the Patriot Athletic Conference. & BRINGING YOU THE BEST IN CUMBERLAND COUNTY HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS April Athlete of the Month (Baseball): Andrew Jayne, Terry Sanford HS 6-8pm May 18 th May 22 nd -26 th 4th Round - Teams TBA NCHS Athletic Assn Regional Championships Teams TBA NCHSAA 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 20 30 40 40 30 20 10 50 10 20 30 40 40 30 20 50 MONDAY Join Don Koonce & Trey Edge for the Baseball Game of the Week ALL on WCLN 105.7 FM Airtime 6:45 PM

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