R-C Sports Notebook: Southern girls' soccer may not be moving to fall after all

The Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association will meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss a complaint seeking to delay moving girls' soccer in the Southern 4A from the winter season to the fall season.

Why is this a big deal?

Here's a little background.

The NIAA has awarded seperate state championships to the winners of the Northern 4A and the Southern 4A since the beginning of the new millenium for the simple reason that they conducted their respective seasons in entirely different stages of the year.

The north competes in the fall, with boys' soccer, and the southern girls play in the winter.

The NIAA voted in 2005 to unify the entire sport of soccer in the fall, as it previously only the Southern 4A girls (namely the Clark County School District) that competed in the winter.

Emphasis here: The other classifications, including all of the boys' classes, compete in the fall.

Now, a Green Valley parent at the last NIAA meeting requested that the move be delayed until the NIAA and Clark County School district can add an additional field sport in the winter for girls attending Clark County Schools.

Coming from the north, this seems to be a "what the heck?" type of question.

But here's the thing. If the NIAA makes this move, and if the complaint is pursued, they could be subject to a Title IX audit.

This seems to be an abuse of what Title IX was intended for. Nevada has a female offering for every high school sport offered to males.

In Vegas, volleyball is also offered to boys and bowling is offered to both sexes. Conversely, the north has skiing in the winter.

The only other area where a sport is split in genders by season is golf, where the girls compete in the fall and the boys compete in the spring.

For the life of me, I can't think why this isn't a no-brainer.

As a parent of a soccer player, why wouldn't you want you child to compete to the highest level possible. Why wouldn't you want to have a true state championship for your sport?

As a coach, you'd want to have one added goal to place in front of your team heading into every year.

Granted, it will cause a lot of inconvenience for the Southern 4A girls, who may have previously been involved with any variety of other sports in the fall.

But that's a decision that every girl from the north has had to make already.

Plus, it could significantly deepen the talent pool for the Southern 4A's already strong basketball region.

Take Douglas as an example. The Tigers had no fewer than six players on its basketball program this season that also played soccer in the fall.

Just something to think about. I'll be watching for the decision from the meeting with great anticipation.

This one is still in the minutes as a tabled item for the NIAA, but a possible move of swimming and diving from the spring to the fall is being considered.

Swimming is one of the more highly-participated female sports in Nevada.

Where does that put us in terms of Title IX compliance?

Just some food for thought. I'd be interested in any opinions out there.

Here's a little bit of trivia for all you scorekeepers at home.

In high school baseball, a starting pitcher must pitch five complete innings in order to remain the pitcher of record in a win.

This comes up from time to time, and it's a personal pet peeve for me because it seems that since a kid can take a loss for blowing up in the first inning, he should equally be able to take a win if he can get his team off to a great start through three or four innings.

There are, of course, exceptions to the rule. This being high school baseball " in Nevada to add to it " it's not at all uncommon to have a game end after just five innings due to the 10-run mercy rule.

In that case, the win goes to the pitcher who had the greatest effect on the outcome of the game " generally the starter.

My beef with the five-inning rule in high school is relatively simple.

It is the same amount of innings that a Major League pitch is required to last in order to gain a win.

The problem with that is that the pros go nine innings, not seven.

So high school pitchers, in effect, are required to pitch a greater percentage of the game in order to pick up a win.

It's not such a big deal, but it does come in to play.

For example, Douglas sophomore Michael Whalin gave way to freshman Kameron VanWinkle in the fifth inning of the second game of Saturday's doubleheader against Wooster.

Whalin had allowed just one run and left the game with the lead. VanWinkle was superb in relief and Douglas cruised to an 11-2 win.

But in the official score, VanWinkle was credited with the win.

That's not to take anything away from VanWinkle's performance, because he was indeed solid.

But Whalin started the game, pitched the majority of it and held down the fort while his team built the lead. Logically, there's no reason he shouldn't take the win.

But the rules are the way they are, so there's not too much hope of changing them.

Following the Major League model, VanWinkle should actually take the save in the game, as he went three innings.

A little known provision in the rulebook is that a reliever is credited with a save when he pitches at least the final three innings of a game and is not the winning pitcher, regardless of the score.

Anyway, this is something that pops its head up every few years. Douglas had a strong starter several years ago who often went three or four strong innings and then gave way to the bullpen in order to save his arm for another appearance later in the series.

His record was only 3-1 at the end of the year, despite starting and gaining the lead in a wide majority of Douglas' games.

In the grand scheme of things, the individual wins-losses column is one of the most overrated and possibly meaningless statistics in all of baseball.

Pitching is a strange position in that you have to take into account a variety of numbers in order to determine how effective a player really is.

A guy can win 15 games in a high school season, but carry an ERA of more than 4.00 and you know basically that he had a great offense behind him.

A guy can lead the state in ERA and still be the hard-luck loser on a bad bounce down the third-base line in the bottom of the seventh.

Arguably, a pitcher has a much greater responsibility over losses than he does with the wins because the opponent's score is directly related to the ball coming off his hand.

Granted, a bad defense can greatly dampen his chances, but at the end of the day, the game starts with a matchup between he and the batter.

Now, regardless of how well his curveball is working that day or how stumped the opposing batters are, there is not a pitch a guy can throw that is going to put runs on the board.

Wins and losses count absolutely in the team standings, but to hang them on one arm isn't really true to the game.

A pitcher in the big leagues carries that "20-win" label with him the rest of his career, but in reality, what does that really mean?

Individually, it presents a nifty bargaining chip during free-agent negotiations, but it means very little to a player's actual contribution to his team.

When you want a great pitcher, you're going to look closer at ERAs, WHIPs, strikeouts per innings pitched, pitch counts and situational splits.

In truth, a high win total represents the greatest thing about baseball " that it takes an entire team to win.

You're cleanup hitter only bats once every three innings or so, so he can't take over the game.

You're starters can only go every week or so.

Simply, no one player can carry an entire team for a season. If you walk out of a season with double-digit win totals as a pitcher, it more or less means you played for a great team.

How deep is Tiger Field to the left field foul pole?

- Douglas assistant baseball coach Rocky Walling, who was instrumental in overhauling the backstop end of Tiger Field, threw out the ceremonial first pitch Thursday afternoon at the Tigers' home-opener.

It's still very early, but if I had a vote for overall player of the year in the Northern 4A Regional baseball and softball honors ballots (and I don't), this is what it would look like this week:

Baseball

1. Jacob Anderson (Galena); 2. Glenn Wallace (Reno); 3. Jordan Hadlock (Douglas); 4. CJ Maldonado (Reed); 5. Ray Daniels (Damonte Ranch)

Softball

1. Mallary Darby (Spanish Springs); 2. Ashley Rahming (Reno); 3. Lauren Hoppe (Douglas); 4. Jaci Carlsen (Spanish Springs); 5. Cassie Vondrak (Carson)

Just when it appeared that Davidson was actually going to knock off Gonzaga in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday, the sports editor in me kicked in.

I was spent the rest of the game trying to think of some way to incorporate David and Goliath into a headline.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one.

After Davidson advanced to the Sweet 16 with a win over Georgetown Sunday, 559 different newspapers and Web sites around the country that used something to the effect of "David(son) stuns Goliath."

Just when you think you're about to be original ...

351 feet.