HS By The Numbers: A 31-day season

May 4, 2018

Soccer is not a stat-driven sport, but that doesn't mean it is devoid of numbers. Each Friday for the rest of the high school season, TopDrawerSoccer high school editor Sheldon Shealer will provide a glance at some of the recent numerical milestones. If you have a performance or milestone worth noting, email us at MILESTONES.

6 -- The number of classifications that Florida will have for high school soccer next school year. Clayton Freeman of the Jacksonville offers a more indepth look at the state's soccer rule changes. OPINION: Florida needs either fewer classifications or a better system in assigning schools to classifications. With the strong foothold of private schools in the state being allowed to play and dominate in small-school classifications, it has created a postseason imbalance leaving just a coupe of legitimate state title contenders in each group, and most of the "state powers" go the entire season -- playoffs included -- without playing each other. Putting a number on the problem, the average score of a girls regional final match (the contest that sends a team to the state semifinals) was 3.6-.6. Boys regional finals were closer on average score, yet still nearly one-third of the matches were decided by three or more goals. By dispersing the same schools over an additional classification -- based purely on enrollment -- likely will lead to an even greater disparity in competition on the regional and state level. Florida, and states with similiar competition issues with schools that draw students outside of its school boundary, might do best to explore the Connecticut soccer playoff model where teams are moved up in classification based on a rolling three-year view of postseason performance.

21 -- The girls soccer team at Salisbury (N.C.) capped a perfect regular season, going 21-0 to set a Rowan County record for most wins in a high school girls soccer season, as reported by the Salisbury Post. The perfect record will give Salisbury home field advantage for at least the first five rounds of postseason play, should they advance that far. The team is led by Charlotte signee Julia Honeycutt, who actually missed Wednesday's regular-season finale, a 2-1 win over rival South Rowan (Landis, N.C.). The previous county record was set by West Rowan (Mount Ulla, N.C.) in 2012.

31 -- Number of days the high school girls soccer regular season in Eastern North Dakota will last this spring. Extremely cold weather, followed by a snow storm and not enough warm weather melt the snow trimmed three weeks off the schedule. Games in the Eastern Dakota Conference started April 26. The last play date is May 26. All non-conference games have been scrapped and the plan, according to an adminstrator with the North Dakota High School Activities Association, is for the EDC to play as much of the conference schedule as possible. In the past, the state tournament berths were determined by the teams' final league standings. This year, there will be a regional tournament to determine which teams advance as the thought is not all league games would be played in such a short amount of time.

75 -- St. Charles North (St. Charles, Ill.) senior Gia Wahlberg's 75th career goal jumpstarted the North Star's 2-0 win over Waukee (Iowa) in the Burlington Tournament of Champions, and it made the Michigan State-bound forward the school's all-time leading goal scorer. The previous mark of 74 was held by Leah DeMoss.

500 -- John Burke is believed to be the first Wisconsin girls soccer coach to reach the 500-win mark, which came Thursday, April 26, when Catholic Memorial (Waukesha, Wis.) defeated [Muskego wi-w] (Wis.) 2-0. Following a win on Tuesday, Burke's 24-year record at Catholic Memorial stands at 504-54-43.

Related Topics: Big Ten, Conference USA