re: LHSAA Boys Playoffs

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Until then, he is making do with what is available, IMHO

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Maybe, but having seen him use the same non-passing style with a team that could have competed with one of Newman's very best (including the team with Matt Savoie), I'm not sure that I buy it. We can agree to disagree on this one

And it's not the matter of beating Newman at their own game. U-High has the better athletes, but U-High also has (a few) kids who can control the ball, pass, and move. A better combination of the two would really suit this team - no one is expecting Barcelona. Teach the kids to make runs to the corner. Don't isolate your most technical player (Kobetz) out on the wing and have him try to go 1v2 or 1v3. Put him in the center and have him dictate play. His workrate on offense and defense was phenomenal, but he had NO ONE offering any kind of support (U-High's central midfield tonight was nonexistant). Have your athletic players running off of him. Teach your forwards holdup play. Quit telling the kids to boot the ball upfield against 3 CBs. That's just poor coaching, regardless of the personnel. Have your backs make overlapping runs. I saw none of this. Instead, 3 years now, I've seen scrappy U-High teams who possibly had the talent to win state, knocked out by a 1 goal margin to Newman because they couldn't string more than a few passes together and relied too heavily on fast forwards and searching long balls. When did all of these last ditch goals from Newman come? In the last ten minutes, basically, or in overtime, when U-High finally got tired from chasing the game. Sure, U-High doesn't have Matt Savoies etc., but they do have talented players who play club and ODP who are more than capable of putting together good passes and (gasp!) movement off the ball.