Our first rankings of the fall season are out and we'll be the first to admit, we've got some work to do. There were several familiar faces at or near the top, with 2 teams (10u Park Sharon Nationals and 11u SBA Premier) earning #1 spots in their respective age groups after finishing the 2017-2018 season at #1. Here we provide some rationale for how we formulated these rankings as well as where we think we missed.
8u
Only 5 teams are ranked in the 8u age group. This is an obvious weakness in our rankings. We feel West Raleigh Blue and East Rowan are probably the top two teams in this age group currently, but neither team have been particularly active this fall. The Cleveland Wildcats Black, who are 15-1 this fall, are close behind the top 2. Notably, the Wildcats only loss this fall came in a 13-5 loss against West Raleigh. GRIT has been impressive thus far and currently sits at 15-3-1. Spartans - Mullins rounds out our top 5 currently and sits at 14-2 this fall with some decent wins over competition in Clemmons.
9u
Similar to the 8u age group, we had a bit of difficulty sorting the bottom of the top 20. As such, we decided to move forward with 15 teams for now, until some more games help differentiate this age group. Dirtbags Black, who finished 2nd in our final 2017-2018 8u rankings, earned our top spot this week. They are 12-0 this fall and already have wins against our #3, #6, #8 (x2), and #9 teams. SBA Premier is close behind in the #2 spot with an 11-2 record this fall including some wins at the 10u level this fall. Dirtbags East earned the #3 spot with an 11-1 record thus far including wins over #6 and #9 (x2). East Rowan sits at #4 this week with the 11-2 LBC Vipers sitting right behind at #5. Canes Baseball NC - Harris, formerly the Carolina Threshers, have wins over #8 and #9 and earned the #6 spot in our first fall rankings. The HPT HiToms are a new team to our rankings this fall. Currently they sit at 18-2-1 but haven't yet faced the same competition level as teams above them. They will be at the Top Gun 9u Winter World Series so we should get to to see them go against some of the best teams next week.
West Raleigh Blue is an interesting team this fall. They finished #1 in our final 8u rankings last year, but are 4-4 this fall. Despite this, their losses have come against #1 (x2), #6, and the NCDB Rivercats, who are just on the outside of the top 15. Needless to say, they've played some excellent competition this fall. We think the next several weeks should be instructive in terms of how West Raleigh ranks in our top 20 9u teams. Greenville Athletics - Whitley earned the #9 spot and with a 9-4 record and two wins over #5 LBC Vipers, the Triple Crown Lookouts checked in at #10 in our top 15 this week. NCABC Fungo was number 11 this week and has a win over #12 Carolina Crushers this fall. They'll need to step up their competition to stay this high in the rankings, however. Carolina Crushers 2027 is 10-2 and came in at #12 this week, with Union County Crush - Gadd, Luckies Bronze, and the Carolina Rockies rounding out our top 15. We see the NCDB Rivercats and the FV Wildcats just on the outside of our top 15 currently, and would be included had we had 20 teams in the rankings this week.
10u
Who else but the Park Sharon Nationals should be #1 in the 10u age group? They're 8-0 this fall, with 4 wins against 11u competition and a win over #2 SBA Premier - Simmons. West Raleigh Blue came in at #3 and already has wins over #5 Greenville Athletics - Scott, #6 Dirtbags Black, and #15 LBC Thunder. #4 Rock Solid Red currently sits at 5-0 with a win over Greenville Athletics - Scott. #7 Park Sharon Nationals - Pirro is a new team to our rankings from last year. They look to have a few players who previously played for the other 10u Park Sharon Nationals team, and are 7-1 currently with a win over #12 Carolina Blue Mizuno and 2 wins over the LBC Thunder. Carolina Red Sox - Jones is back in our rankings at #8 with a 10-2 record this fall and a win over #9 Summerfield Stars and #17 Smash Baseball. The Stars are currently 14-3 including a win over #16 Five Star Carolina, 2 wins over the Smash and a win over the Red Sox. Dirtbags East has a win over #6 Dirtbags Black already this fall and sits at 8-3 overall to earn our #10 ranking. SBA Premier - Pitts has played one of the more difficult schedules in the 10u age group this fall. They are 6-5 overall, but have a win over #2 SBA Premier - Simmons and a win over #19 Havoc. Carolina Blue Mizuno sits at #12 this week with a 10-2 record, while the NCDB Rivercats are 8-3 currently with a win over Smash, and sit at #13 currently. The Carolina Thunder are 6-1 this fall and came it at #14 this week, while 10-6 LBC Thunder are at #16. Five Star Carolina are at #16 after a 9-3 start to their fall campaign. Rounding out our top 20, the Carolina Rockies, Havoc, and Panthers came in at 18th, 19th, and 20th, respectively.