A revolt is coming in the high school baseball and softball universes.
The Power Point system, adopted anew before the school year began, is wimpy.
It used to matter. Baseball and softball teams who put themselves in quality tournaments were rewarded for stretching themselves, gaining experience from strong competition and being tangibly rewarded in power points by either beating quality teams, or earning points simply by playing the strong.
Now it’s all about the ‘W’ in getting one of those 16 state tournament spots.
We’ve been to each of the polar extremes. Strength of schedule meant everything (the way it does in football). Now sheer wins means everything. Tournaments are simply selfish gauges for each team to measure themselves against others.
Despite a system based on numbers, there’s no tangible reward for playing a good team in a tournament.
If you win, doesn’t matter. If you lose to Carl Hayden or Phoenix Xavier, it doesn’t matter. Region games don’t much matter.
Beating the woeful 18 times during the season gets you, say, an 18-6 record and top 16 spot. Lose five or six games to the Valley’s best (as the Desert Valley region will do in softball), and you could lose your state tournament spot to the 18-6 team with the Stay-Puffed scheduling.
Changes better be coming. Again.
