Why hasnt FS played Pokemon this year? (A complete guess)
Mind you this entirely speculation on my part but it seemed that FS has lost a majority of his interest in the Game of Pokemon. Not only has he not played in a Battle Road or City Championship this year, he has also been almost completely absent from posting on Pokebeach.
By my total and completely uniformed opinion, it appears that FS is suffering from Pokemon Overkill, combined with and a big slap in the face by reality. I think that he put so much effort and energy into the importance into going to Worlds last year (I.E. going to Idaho states when Oregon states was on the same day in his own backyard), only to just fall short of the goal, I am sure it soured him on all things Pokemon.
Remember last year all he ever spoke about was how close he was to reaching his goal of going to Worlds. Then just when he had his yearlong goal of getting the free trip to Hawaii and entry into the World Championships in his grasp, he watched it all blow away after participating in Nationals, when he would have had the trip to Hawaii and played in Worlds if he had just stayed home. You can easily see how that could cause someone to begin to develope a distaste toward the game of Pokemon a bit.
Then later on that summer when Cason tragically passed on in that accident, I would suppose that horrible event kind of put everything into perspective. Life is important, Pokemon is not. Casons passing proved that an all actuality, Pokemon is a really unimportant and unnecessary event in the grand scheme of life. After all Pokemon is and always will be just a game. There are so many, many things far more meaningful and important in life then Pokemon ever will be. In life it is our relationships with our family and friends that truly matter, and our indivisual satisfaction level and personal happiness should have no correlation at all to our success level in a Trading Card Game.
All I know for sure that it was after Casons passing that FS's post became less and less frequent on the Gym. And then this year he has yet to participate in a Battle Road or City Championship.
That is just my best guess at what happened, only FS can tell you for sure why he hasn't played. Hopefully he will return to the game when he is ready. If not I wish him the best out of life.