In past seasons, Skyview’s 0-0 tie to Union on Friday in boys soccer would have been devastating to the Storm.
All season, Skyview and Camas have been tied atop the 4A Greater St. Helens League standings. The Storm and Papermakers have twice tied in head-to-head meetings.
It appeared as if that’s the way the regular season would end this week.
But Skyview’s tie has given Camas a two-point lead in the 4A GSHL standings with two games to play. That has put Skyview’s hope for a league title in jeopardy.
In past seasons, that was a big deal because in soccer a league title also meant a district title.
But this season, 4A GSHL soccer coaches decided that a league title shouldn’t mean that much. It should mean a banner in the gym and little else.
This season, the first-place team in the 4A GSHL will play the second-place team for the district title on Saturday at McKenzie Stadium.
What I was hoping for was for Camas and Skyview to remain tied atop the 4A GSHL at the end of the regular season.
That would have minimized the absurdity of this district playoff through the necessity of a tiebreaker game.
But if the tiebreaker is no longer needed, the district playoff returns to being absurd.
Now soccer coaches, at least most of them, would say that they are just following the format used for almost every other sport in the district.
But I respond like a parent to a child, saying “Just because every other kid in the neighborhood jumped off a 100 foot cliff doesn’t mean you should, too.”
I had a reader recently ask me the question: “What’s the difference between a league title and a district title?”
So I’ll try to make sense of it. More precisely, as it relates to 4A and 3A teams in the region, I’ll try to explain why it doesn’t make sense.
We’ll start with Class 2A. In 2A, there are two leagues in District 4, which is comprised of Southwest Washington — 2A Evergreen Conference and 2A GSHL.
The top teams in each league standings advance to a district tournament to determine which teams will advance to state from the district.
The 2A GSHL doesn’t play a league tournament to determine seeding into the district tournament. Seeding is based on league standings.
That’s the difference between a league title and district title, and it makes sense. The 1A teams in the district have a similar setup.
But in 4A and 3A, there is one league in the district at each classification. Because of that, District 4 would only receive one berth to state in most years if it stood alone.
But to give more teams a shot at state, District 4 combines with District 3 to play a bi-district tournament. So the bi-district tournament becomes the district tournament for 4A and 3A teams.
But for some unknown reason, at 4A and 3A, the teams hold a district playoff to determine their seeding into the bi-district tournament, instead of letting the league standings do that.
In past years, soccer was excused from this absurdity. And that’s because of the nature of the sport of soccer. Ties are part of the game. Given that, soccer coaches decide the best way to determine the District 4 champion was the 10-game league schedule, and not a single playoff game in which the winner could be determined by the very random nature of a penalty-kick shootout.
But this season the 4A bi-district playoff format has changed. The leagues in District 3 and 4 decided to protect the integrity of the regular season by giving the regular-seasons champions of the Narrows League and South Puget Sound League’s North and South Divisions automatic berths to state.
The regular-season champion from the 4A GSHL would also earn this automatic berth. But the 4A GSHL decided it needed a playoff game after the end of the regular season to determine the District 4 champion.
So what’s the difference between a league title and a district title for 4A GSHL teams?
Well, teams that win a league title can hang a banner in the gym proclaiming their league title earned over many weeks of competition.
But a district championship can be earned in one day, in one game against a team that didn’t have quite as strong of a regular season as the league champion.
It makes no sense to me. If it makes sense to someone else, I’d love for you to take your best shot to convince I’m off-base on this.
Oh, and, good luck.
