XTRA POINT: FHSAA and MaxPreps reach much-needed partnership

Palm Coast Observer
Sports

Thanks to the Florida High School Athletic Association and MaxPreps, Christmas has come early — hopefully — for players, coaches, sports media and those who like to track games, results and stats.

FHSAA has partnered with the online high school sports to make MaxPreps the FHSAA’s exclusive scores and statistics provider for the next five years.

According to a press release, FHSAA coaches will be required to submit scores to MaxPreps after each game to accurately track regular season standings and results, starting at the beginning of the 2017-18 school year.

This gives me great cause to celebrate because, as it currently stands, some teams are nearly impossible to follow. Coaches never update their team’s information on any high school sports website, so nothing is hardly known about some of the best players and teams in the state.

I like to measure player’s stats from the area against players from around the country. If Mainland pitcher Abagaile Killian’s stats weren’t recorded, no one would’ve know she had the best strikeout percentage per game in the nation, according to MaxPreps.

It has been entertaining, keeping track of Matanzas soccer player Miracle Porter’s journey over the last four seasons to watch her crack into the Top 4 all-time career goals ranking.

Unlike those two, there have been countless star athletes whose numbers have gone unnoticed, and I’m sure colleges and recruiters follow multiple sports sites to track the best athletes in the country.

I asked FHSAA’s Public Relations Specialist Kyle Niblett what would happen if teams chose not to update their scores and team information, and he said, “Repeated violations ‘could’ result in a $100 fine (45.1.1). We are very aware that when you implement new technology, there are some growing pains in terms of inputting the data. The FHSAA will be very accommodating in that respect. We will work tirelessly with our member schools this summer to educate them on the process of using MaxPreps.”

If you ask me, no team should ever come close to getting fined for this. Why not expose students’ game results and stats to potential college recruiters? Seems like a no-brainer.