By Michael Letendre

Everyone is celebrating the fact that the CIAC finally held its championship weekend for boys and girls soccer, volleyball, swimming and field hockey.

It was great to see because the pandemic knocked out the championships in 2020 and the student athletes have long awaited the chance to compete for titles in 2021.

With that being said, I was absolutely appalled to see the girls soccer championship results from Saturday night.

Frankly, the squads from Bristol didn’t qualify and I was out of the state so I had just a passing interest in the results.

But when I finally hit the CIAC website, and saw the scores from the Class LL and Class M championship matches, you could hear me yelling from Massachusetts.

And that’s because both matches ended up in 0-0 ties?

Come on!

Staples and Wilton went 0-0 in the Class LL bout while in the Class M tilt, Mercy and Sacred Heart Academy did not have a score.

The CIAC, after a year off, couldn’t figure out how to deal with championship stalemates?

I don’t understand it and I certainly don’t like co-champions at the state title level – in anything.

It’s completely ridiculous and the solution to this issue is simple.

You play eighty hard fought minutes and the score is tied.

And then you put five minutes on the clock, twice, and if the match is still a stalemate, what do you do?

Take penalty kicks for crying out loud.

Why is that so difficult?

What life lessons does a tie get you in the end?

Is this Little League? Does everyone get a trophy?

Imagine if the Bristol Eastern and Simsbury volleyball squads were in the midst of a hotly contested fifth and final set in the CCC Championship Tournament game.

The score is 15-15 and you have to win the set by two points.

What would the scene look like if the set was still all tied up at 20-20 and the referee blew the whistle and said ‘that’s it. This match is a draw!’

How crazy would that be?

Who in their right mind would say, “Oh, fantastic! Everybody wins!’

How mad would both squads be with that outcome?

How could Bristol Eastern All-State middle/outside hitter Hannah Webber enjoy her postgame Cheez-It crackers after that tomfoolery?!?

Believe me, a competitor like Webber – and most of those other student athletes from Saturday at Dillion Stadium in Hartford – don’t play for ties or stalemates.

There’s a winner and there’s a loser.

This is a poor life lesson and just as silly a concept the times Bristol Central and Bristol Eastern football programs had to share the Battle for the Bell Trophy on two separate occasions over the years.

Again, here’s the winner and here’s the loser.

Not, ‘hey it’s a tie – we all win! Hooray!’

Give me a break…

Some of us in the media weren’t even aware that overtime wasn’t part of scholastic soccer in 2021.

Last year during the raging pandemic, it made sense to end games in regulation.

Just getting the athletes a partial season was a big deal.

I don’t understand who would vote for ties in soccer to continue instead of trying to determine an ultimate winner.

Hey, McDonald’s will be open after the game – no matter when the match ends.

And the mechanics of penalty kicks could be modified – whether additional time is played or not.

Let’s say after eighty grueling minutes, a soccer match is tied at 1-1 and two extra periods were played – leading to a continued stalemate.

Go to penalty kicks.

Or simply forget the two overtime sessions and go right to the kicks instead.

And the first team to get a ball by the opposing keeper wins.

Going from the end of regulation to the first penalty kick make wouldn’t take all that long, would it?

But ties need to go away and state title games in Connecticut must have a winner.

Truly, no one wins when you have to split championships.

Play until someone wins because these outstanding athletes deserve a proper ending instead of what happed on Saturday.

It’s only fair.