'22 Boys Postseason #7 (11-11)
by Admin on 11/10/22
Happy Veteran's Day and thank you to all who have served!
Last year we tried to add a little bit of insight to the postseason by taking some deeper dives into MO HS Soccer, the playoffs and anything else that we thought was relevant to the soccer scene. With the state playoffs starting Saturday (already!), we thought we would fill some of the time in between districts and quarters (and next week between quarter and final four play) with some looks into the state’s soccer climate.
The 2022-23 season is the third with the Championship Factor (CF) classification process in place for all sports and we thought it might be interesting to take a look at how that has changed the landscape of soccer, arguably one of the sports that the CF affects the most due to the higher than normal occurrence of private school champions.
We won’t get into all the history and mitigating factors of the CF in this post (mainly because we did that extensively last year), but those who would like an explanation of how it works, why it came about and more, here is a quick resource.
https://www.ozarkssportszone.com/2020/06/24/mshsaas-new-championship-factor-explained
Classifications for the soccer season came out in mid-September for the 224 boys soccer schools with 28 schools impacted by the CF points system. (A quick recap: winning a district is 1 point, reaching a final four is 2, second place is 3 and winning a title is 4 points…any private/parochial/charter school team that has accumulated 0-2 points within the past six years stays in its enrollment class, 3-7 points in six years pushes that school up one class and 8+ points pushes the school up two classifications. Points are not accumulative for the year - the most any school can get is 4.) Here’s the link to seeing what private schools are impacted by the CF.
https://www.mshsaa.org/Activities/ChampionshipFactor.aspx?alg=33
A breakdown:
- Six schools had 8+ points and in theory moved up two classes; however, due to the enrollment they already have, Rockhurst (15), CBC (11) SLUH (1) and DeSmet (8) would likely already be in Class 4, so this likely doesn’t affect them. (DeSmet would be a C3 only with 0-2 points.) John Burroughs (13), Priory (9) and Whitfield (8) all jumped up two classes from what their enrollment would be and are the ones most affected.
All 22 schools with 3-7 points were bumped into a higher class than their standard enrollment. St. Dominic, a traditional state power, is in Class 4 this year, but would be a Class 3 without the CF in place. Same with Vianney, DeSmet and Chaminade. Several other schools (Guadalupe, Principia, Barstow, Bishop LeBlond, Lutheran St. Charles and MICDS) are in this bracket based on winning state titles over the past six years. Of those six schools, Barstow, Lutheran St. Charles and MICDS are all bumped up a class solely based on the years of winning a state championship. The other three would have been bumped based on the other five years point totals.
Of note - some schools have already accumulated points that will change classification for next year based on the one point for winning a district. Depending on the rest of the tournament, a few more schools could also change. Here are the private/parochials and possible projections who will bump up from their standard enrollment numbers next year (so far): C1 New Covenant (3 points, 1 class), C2 Saxony Lutheran (5 points, 1 class - stays in C2), C2 Principia (8 points, 2 classes, moves to C3), C2 Helias (3 points, moves 1 class to C3), C2 Barstow (6 points, stays in C2), C3 Cape Notre Dame (6 points, 1 class, stays in C3), C3 Whitfield (9 points, moves 2 classes, stays in C3). In addition, CBC, Chaminade, St. Dominic and Rockhurst all added points that will keep them in C4.
A few schools that lose points this year include John Burroughs and Priory but will still have over 8 points and will bump 2 classes. Only Lutheran South will drop out of the CF group next year.
The one caveat to all of this is that it is still early in the CF history to get a good read on how schools will continue to be impacted because of the six-year window it currently uses. It will be quite difficult (although not impossible, as Burroughs showed last year and Whitfield is showing this year in Class 3) for small enrollment schools like John Burroughs, Priory and Whitfield to maintain success when playing larger schools each postseason. Whitfield is one of the top-ranked class 3 schools a year after winning a Class 2 title (and finishing as runner-up in Class 1 in 2020) and likely will have a say in how this year’s tournament plays out after escaping a very difficult C3 district. However, all three schools are more the exception than the rule because all three have exceptional soccer pedigree and success historically.
One thing the CF has done is that it has opened up the Class 1 and 2 playoffs to many “non-traditional” powers. In Class 1 this year there is only one school that has ever claimed a state title in MO (Duchesne 1993 and 2004). Class 2 has five former champions (private schools Barstow, Principia, Bishop LeBlond, St. Paul Lutheran and public school Southern Boone) in its 55 teams. To contrast, the year prior to the CF going into place (2019), Class 1 had 4 former champions and Class 2 had 13 schools that had or now have won titles (those 13 account for roughly 25 total state champions since 1968).
Essentially, the CF has made classes 3-4 more difficult/competitive (based on historical successes of the programs) and pushed many of the small school powers from class 1-2 into those classes. There will be fluctuations to this over the next few years until a complete picture can be painted, but if trends follow, there will be 20-30 private schools who will be impacted yearly - most just one class up from where they would normally be enrollment-wise. Ultimately, Class 3 will have a heavier load of private schools than in the past, which is kind of ironic in the sense that Class 3 traditionally has had the fewest number of private schools since MSHSAA implemented four classes in 2014. In fact, Class 3 has not had a private school champ during those eight years. Class 4 has had five, Class 2 seven and Class 1 seven. Even with the CF in place, most championships will still likely come from private schools - at least in the near future -if the previous 50+ years is any indication.
(In the final regular season MO Power Rankings eight of the top 10 Class 2 schools were public. Only 3 of the top 10 in Class 1 were. In Class 3, 11 of the top 15 were public and 10 of the top 15 in Class 4 were public. )
For comparison sake of classifications (note that some schools have changed, not fielded teams or are now co-op with another school so the numbers aren’t the same from 2019 to 2022. It’s also possible I missed a school or two.):
2022 Class 1 Private Schools - 19
2019 Class 2 Private Schools -24
2022 Class 2 Private Schools -15
2019 Class 3 Private Schools -7
2022 Class 3 Private Schools -10
2019 Class 4 Private Schools - 6
2022 Class 4 Private Schools - 9
Some other numbers to consider regarding the CF and the change it has had in classifications since 2019 statewide.
Schools affected by sport - keep in mind that soccer has far fewer schools playing than most of the rest of these sports (number of schools participating in parentheses - only fall sports numbers are from 2022-23 as those haven’t been updated yet):
Boys soccer 28 (224 schools) 12.5%
Girls soccer 27 (223 in 2021-22) 12.1%
Tennis Girls 18 (183) 9.8%
Tennis Boys 16 (171 in 2021-22) 9.3%
Golf Girls 16 (227) 7%
Golf Boys 21(328 in 2021-22) 6.4%
Volleyball 25 (436) 5.7%
Football 14 (307) 4.5%
Cross Country Girls 18 (410) 4.4%
Boys Basketball 21(549 in 2021-22) 3.8%
Girls Basketball 15 (528 in 2021-22) 2.8%
Baseball 14 (492 in 2021-22) 2.8%
Track (Boys) 13 (502 in 2021-22) 2.6%
Cross Country Boys 11 (416) 2.6%
Softball 7 (322) 2.2%
Track (Girls) 10 (500 in 2021-22) 2%
Wrestling Boys 4 (240 in 2021) 1.7%
Wrestling Girls 0 (195 in 2021 and only one class, so no movement possible) 0%
Essentially, the CF has impacted soccer’s classifications the most so far. This isn’t surprising considering the high number of private school successes over the years. It will be interesting to see what happens after a few more years of the CF in place and if MSHSAA will stick to the current six-year cycle.
Thanks for reading!
Later Friday (today)…a quick look at all 16 quarterfinals.
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