ROPSSAA at OFSAA basketball and volleyball

Seven ROPSSAA teams will represent the region at various OFSAA championships around the province. Here is a brief preview.

Girls AAAA Basketball in St. Anne: ROPSSAA tier 1 champion Campion is seeded 9th and opens the tournament against 3rd seeded Westdale from the Hamilton public league. Meanwhile, runners up Notre Dame are seeded 10th and will play 4th seed Waterloo Collegiate. The first two rounds are tomorrow. If either team wins their second game, they will move on to the quarter-finals on Friday. St. Thomas More from the Hamilton Catholic league is the heavy favourite to win and continue GHAC's dominance of this tournament. (7 titles in the past 10 years.)

Boys AAAA Volleyball in Hamilton: If Mississauga had not called it quits on their season, they would have been looking at a top-3 seeding. Rick Hansen was probably on pace for a top-8 seed. However, for the first time in over a decade, neither school will represent the region at OFSAA. Instead, ROPSSAA champions BCSS are seeded #10 and will play #4 Holy Names (Windsor), #7 Glebe (Ottawa), and #Cardinal Newman (Hamilton Catholic). Robert Hall is seeded last among the 16 teams and will play #1 Bill Crothers (Markham), #6 Saunders (London), and #11 Bishop Allen (Toronto Catholic). Bill Crothers is probably the best high school volleyball team in the entire country, filled with starters for Ontario's Ontario's top club program. Look for them to beat either St. Michael or Grand River in the final.

Boys AAA Volleyball in Hamilton: The seeding committee was not kind to Applewood, placing them in the 19th spot out of 20 teams. The Axemen will play #3 Beatrice Desloges (Ottawa), #8 Milton, #9 Waterloo-Oxford and #14 Kingston CVI. The top seed from London Oakridge would be a high seed even at AAAA so expect them to be in the final. Beatrice Desloges has a lot of solid club players from Ottawa and could be their opponent.

Boys AA Volleyball in Stratford: #17 St. Paul plays in Pool D, along with #4 Essex (Windsor area), #7 Loyalist (Kingston), #10 Lo-Ellen (Sudbury), and #13 Barrie Central. Eden out of St. Catharines is seeded #1 but Franco Cite from Ottawa played a tougher league schedule and might be the eventual winner.

Boys A Volleyball on Manitoulin Island: This is the only one of the 8 OFSAA tournaments this week to start on Friday instead of Thursday. Brampton Christian is seeded #14 and, for a change, is competitive despite being an automatic ROPSSAA rep at he A level in every sport in which they compete. They actually finished ahead of eventual tier 1 champion BCSS in the regular season and won a round in the tier 1 playoffs before losing to HAll in the quarters. They will face #3 Mere-Terese (Hamilton Catholic), #8 West Elgin, #9 Manitouwadge, and #19 Charles Garnier (Whitby). It's hard to say who is the favourite. Many of the teams get beaten up regularly against bigger schools in league play and it's anyone's guess who will respond best to playing against school's their own size. Quinte Christian from Belleville is the top seed.

There are no ROPSSAA teams in Girls AAA basketball in Kingston, Girls AA basketball in Brockville, and Girls A basketball in St. Catharines. Ontario powerhouse Hamilton St. Mary's (AAA) is probably the clearest favourite of any of the four levels of basketball while General Amherst (AA) won this level 4 times in a row not too long ago and seem to be the favourite after three years without a title. The top two seeds in A are both from EOSSAA so one of Elgin and North Grenville is s good bet to bring home the gold.

Coming soon: The ROPSSAA Cup

I've always been curious about which schools are the most successful in the widest number of events so I have decided to create a competition based on this investigation. Over the course of each of the three seasons of ROPSSAA sports, I will keep track of the top four teams in each sport at each level and tier. After compiling a list of results for each season, I will use a point system (explained below) to declare the winning school.

Please note that this is not endorsed by ROPSSAA in any way. It's just one bloggers way of creating another topic for discussion. There will be no hardware; only blogging pride.

After some thought, I have come up with a point system. The top four teams in each tier 1 (or non-tiered) sport will receive 8 points for winning the championship, 6 points for finishing 2nd; 4 points for finishing 3rd (or being the higher-seeded semi-finalist) and 2 points for finishing 4th (or being the lower-seeded semi-finalist.) At the tier two level it will be 4, 3, 2, and 1 point, respectively. Some people might think it's unfair to award fewer points for tier 2 but I am doing it anyway for two reasons:

1. Many tier two playoffs are simply the teams that finished 4th and 5th in their divisions in non-tiered league play. (Basketball, Field Hockey, Flag Football, and Volleyball this Fall.)
2. In tiered leagues (i.e. football), the level of competition is much higher and schools that opt to play at the tougher level should receive extra recognition for this.

I realize some will still disagree. That's fine but since it's only the creation of a high school blogger with a bit too much time on their hands, what does it really matter? It's only done for discussion anyway.

One other accommodation is a decision not to award points for combined titles in individual sports. (In the case of Fall sports, that means tennis and cross country.) This is because it's not actually competed directly between schools; it's simply a compilation of points earned in the various male and female levels for which schools are already receiving credit in this competition. Since it's not available in team sports, it would give schools that tend to focus on individual sports an unfair advantage.

So there you have it; the basic concept of the ROPSSAA cup. After the final Fall championships are decided today in junior girls basketball, I will finish compiling the results and total the points. The Fall standings will be posted by the end of the week.

A week of ROPSSAA news

FOOTBALL
Congrats to Lorne Park and Notre Dame, winners of the ROPSSAA junior and senior football titles, respectively. In the Junior final, Lorne Park outlasted a tough St. Roch squad 13-10 in a close game. The next day, it was Notre Dame's turn to shine, with a thrilling 28-21 victory over Mount Carmel. The boards were buzzing of rumours about injuries to top players on both teams but they proved to either be false or exaggerated as both teams were at close to full strength. Fortunately for ROPSSAA, this year is their turn to send two teams to the Golden Horseshoe semi-finals. Notre Dame will play SOSSAA winner St. Paul from Niagara Falls, the first time in ages the region isn't represented by Lakeshore Catholic. Meanwhile, Mount Carmel will have its work cut out for them, playing a Burlington Nelson team that many think is the best high school team in Canada. In Tier 2, it was Mayfield winning easily over Clarkson.

BASKETBALL
For the second year in a row, Campion are the champions of ROPSSAA girls basketball, once again defeating Notre Dame in the final. This year, the final wasn't even close, with Campion winning by a decisive 49-23 margin. Both teams advance to OFSAA outside of Windsor, where Campion is seeded a surprisingly low 9 and Notre Dame is only one spot behind. This strikes me as a bit strange. Meanwhile, ROPSSAA's other three qualifiers all failed to get by their GHAC opponents and finish one game short of qualifying to OFSAA. Loyola lost to perennial powerhouse Hamilton St. Mary's (though they did win the tier 2 title over Pocock); Ascension lost by a surprisingly large margin to Oakville's Aquinas and Brampton Christian lost to King's Christian from Burlington.

Speaking of OFSAA, congratulations to the Rimrocker organizers who have apparently been awarded the 2014 OFSAA AAAA boys basketball championship in 2014. This will be the first time the championship has ever been hosted in Mississauga.

VOLLEYBALL
Rick Hansen was given a gift when their bitter rivals from Mississauga withdrew from the playoffs but they couldn't capitalize, losing in the semi-finals to eventual champions Brampton Centennial. BCSS will be joined at AAAA OFSAA by Robert F. Hall which also advanced to the league final. Our reps at the smaller levels are Applewood (AAA), St. Paul (AA), and Brampton Christian (A). Rick Hansen did have more success at the junior level, defeating Mayfield. Their Bantam team was not as lucky, losing to the only Mississauga squad that was allowed to remain in the playoffs.

THE CUTS CONTINUE
Complaints are being voiced by the boys basketball coaches over the number of teams in the playoffs. As predicted in an earlier post about ROPSSAA budget cuts, the playoffs are down to 8 from 16 (senior) and 12 (junior last year). There is also some dissatisfaction over the division set up, both in terms of number of games and the unwieldy three-division set up that leaves too much up to tie-breakers between teams that don't play common opponents. Surely ROPSSAA can set up even numbers of divisions to make it simpler and more fair?

Senior girls basketball playoffs: How did that happen?

Followers of ROPSSAA girls basketball are still buzzing over the apparent clerical error that lead to incorrect match ups in the second round of the tier 1 playoffs.

For those not familiar with the format, the top 2 teams in each of the 6 divisions advanced to the playoffs. The coaches seeded the six division winners 1-6 and the six 2nd place teams 7-12. After that the four top seeds all received a bye to the quarter-finals while the other 8 teams played a preliminary round with the expected match-ups: 5 vs 12, 6 vs 11, and so on.

The problem was in the second round. Since ROPSSAA doesn't re-seed after each round, the match-ups were predetermined. Winner of game A would play #1, B vs #2, C vs #3, and D vs #4. The problem is that it looks like who ever created the playoff schedule didn't pay attention to the seeds of the A-D matches. Match A was 5 vs 12 so, assuming no upset, the #1 seed would play the #5 seed. Following the same expectation, that would mean 2 vs 6, 3 vs. 7, and 4 vs. 8. Anyone who follows sports knows that this is wrong. The highest seed should not be potentially matched up against the highest-seeded winner from the previous round and the #4 seed should not be potentially matched up against the lowest-seeded winner from the previous round.

Apparently the problem wasn't caught until early this week. It's not exactly sure who caught it first; one of the number of coaches who e-mailed ROPSSAA this week, this poster on HooptownGTA, or the ROPSSAA administrators themselves. Regardless, the word came down that, while it was an error, it was too late to fix. Buses had been booked and game times confirmed. Some coaches accepted this with a shrug while others were apparently incredulous that the error would be allowed to stand.

In ROPSSAA's defence, things have not been easy since their most experienced administrator took a medical leave last year. It's meant a bigger workload for everyone else and time spent training new blood. Regardless, it was a major oversight and it calls into question the fairness of the playoffs. It should also be noted that three of the four visiting teams were from the Catholic Board so they were likely using their own school buses instead of a charter. Switching to the correct match-ups would not have been as difficult for them.

You can be sure every playoff schedule will be triple checked before being published from now on.

ROPSSAA: Get ready for cuts

Go to the ROPSSAA Website and click on the various sports. Then click on the playoff match-ups. Do you notice any differences from last year?

In case you're not sure, note the number of teams in the playoffs compared to Fall, 2010. Here are a few examples:

Football: Last year, the top 8 teams made the tier 1 playoffs; this year their are only 6. In Junior football, the difference was even more pronounced. Last year, the top 16 made the tier 1 playoffs and the other 4 teams made the tier 2 playoffs. This year, only the top 8 made the tier 1 playoffs and there is no tier 2.

Boys Volleyball: Last year, the top 16 made the tier 1 playoffs and the next 16 made the tier 2 playoffs in both senior and junior. This year, it is top 16 and next 8 in both levels.

Girls Basketball: Last year, the top 16 in senior girls made the tier 1 playoffs and the next 16 made the tier 2 playoffs. This year, it is 12 and 8, respectively. In junior, it's an even bigger reduction; going from 16 and 16 to 8 and 8.

These are just three examples but you can be sure there will be more of them as the year progresses.

Why?

You can blame the Ontario School Food and Beverage Policy. As you may already know, many high fat foods and sugar-filled drinks have been banned from Ontario school cafeterias and vending machines. While this is an admirable goal, lost in this move was the amount of money companies like Coke and Pepsi provided for schools. This also included a significant amount of funding for ROPSSAA expenses.

Now there is a large hole in the budget. How large? Enough that there was a special general meeting held earlier in the Fall to discuss options. Some proposed options included, eliminating medals and playoffs for tier 2; cutting back on the number of sports; requiring volunteer coaches to carry more of the weight in administration; severely cutting back the number of games; and many sports-specific proposals. One thing that was not on the table was increased funding from each school. Many of them are already tapped out after dealing with enrollment drops and cuts to funding,

It looks like cutting back on the playoffs is the first step of what might be any more cutbacks. It will be interesting to track if the cuts are spread fairly evenly or if some sports feel the brunt more than others.

Mississauga Volleyball: An update

I have since discovered the nature of the incident that lead to Mississauga withdrawing. It's rather mundane and involves an incident at their last game of the season. That's not the reason for the mini-post.

The reason is the new bombshell: Mississauga is withdrawing its junior team, too. Obviously the incident must have involved both teams. This one started making the rounds among volleyball coaches today and quickly passed into wider ROPSSAA circles. No word if the teams in their division will all move up one spot or if Mississauga's first round opponent in the junior playoffs, Father Goetz gets a bye.

Update: Mississauga forfeited the playoff match, 3-0

Mississauga SS Volleyball: What happened?

Anyone who follows volleyball in Peel knows that the two powerhouses are Mississauga and Rick Hansen. They are the perennial ROPSSAA finalists. This year, Mississauga was the slightly more successful of the two and seemed to be on pace for another division title over rival Rick Hansen and another #1 seed in the playoffs. Now they are suddenly 0-20, with every set registered as an 0-25 loss.

What happened?

The assumption at first was that there must have been an ineligible player that wasn't caught in time. As unfortunate as that is, it happens from time to time in Peel and the powerhouses aren't immune.

However, a bit of digging has revealed that the decision was internal; the school itself chose to forfeit all their games and end the season early. No one is saying exactly what happened but word is there was an incident last year and a repeat this year that lead to this action.

As I don't know exactly what happened it's hard to judge the appropriateness of the action. However, schools aren't in the habit of throwing in the towel on OFSAA medal-calibre programs without very good reason so I'll give Mississauga SS credit for taking whatever happened seriously and applying serious consequences.

Now the second ROPSSAA berth is wide open. Rick Hansen is now #1 seed. They would have been the #9 seed otherwise. This benefits them and what would have been their higher-seeded opponents. As the teams are pre-seeded based on divisions, it's hard to say who really is the second best team. Is it Streetsville who is stuck behind Mississauga and Rick Hansen in the same division; Stephen Lewis who is technically the second seed; or Robert Hall which only lost one set all season? Regardless, the playoffs aren't as predictable all of a sudden.