The fall season is starting to wind down, however the 10u and 12u Top Gun Winter World Series results led to some shake ups in those two age groups. In particular, we found the top of the 12u age group to be quite difficult to sort out. Here we've provided the rationale for how we ranked teams this week.
8u
There were no real changes in the rationale this week as the vast majority of these teams were idle this past week.
9u
The top 5 remained the same this week in the 9u age group. We did drop West Raleigh Blue from 6 to 9 this week, despite them not play. We probably had these guys a bit too highly ranked previously given their performance thus far in the fall season. They are 6-5 this fall, with 4 of their 6 wins coming against #18 Youngsville Phantoms and have losses against #2 Dirtbags Black (x2), #4 Canes Baseball NC - Harris, and #13 NCDB Rivercats. In the end, although they've played a highly competitive schedule, we just didn't feel a 6-5 record was enough to stay above teams such as Dirtbags East, the Triple Crown Lookouts, and East Rowan, who have all also played competitive schedules but have performed slightly better. The NCDB Rivercats have continued to climb our rankings, now up to #13 as they have won 7 of their last 8 games. We did drop Fungo - Piscorik from the top 20 this week and added the Kings Mountain Storm in at #20.
10u
#3 West Raleigh Blue made a big statement this past weekend at the Top Gun WWS as they moved to 16-2 on the fall season, however we just did not feel it was enough to move them past #1 Park Sharon Nationals or #2 SBA Premier - Simmons. Previously we would have said there was pretty good separation between #2 and #3, however West Raleigh has closed that gap a bit. Previous #4 Greenville Athletics - Scott had a tough weekend at the WWS and we moved them down from 4th to 11th. Dirtbags Black moved 7th to 4th after a 2-1 weekend at the WWS. We feel their schedule has been move competitive than that of #5 Park Sharon Nationals - Pirro and #6 Rock Solid Red, despite their better records, which warranted the move up for Dirtbags Black. Beyond that, the Wilson Reds were added to our top 20 at #19 after a 6-0 weekend and a D2 title at the Top Gun WWS.
11u
The top 8 remained the same this week in the 11u age group as only #4 Rawlings Prospects NC and #7 Dirtbags East were active at the 12u Top Gun WWS. We dropped the Carolina Havoc slightly from 9th to 11th which allowed the NCDB Rivercats, winners of 9 of their last 10 games, and 15-7-1 GRIT to move up. The Carolina Thunder moved up 3 spots from 15th to 12th after a title at the AAU event in Cary/Oxford this past weekend, including a win over #14 Akadema Heat, who moved down from #12 this week. Rock Solid Red moved down from 13th to 17th after a 2-2 weekend in Oxford. We did add the Carolina Spinners to our top 20 this week after a 5-0 weekend including a win over the Carolina Havoc moved them to 22-6 this fall.
12u
The biggest changes of the week came at the top of the 12u age group, and we remain unsure that we've got these rankings stratified appropriately. In our mind, the top 5 in this age group (Canes Baseball NC - Hood, Canes Baseball NC - Simpson, Dirtbags Charlotte, Mission Vipers Gold, and SBA Premier) have separated themselves from the rest of the age group, if only slightly. Previous #1 SBA Premier, went an uncharacteristic 0-3 at the top Gun WWS this past weekend (21-8-1 overall) and moved us to drop them to #2 this weekend. We moved Canes - Simpson up to #1 after a 6-0 weekend moved them to 18-6 on the fall season, including 13 wins in their last 14 games. Mission Vipers Gold, owners of a 17-4 record this fall, remained at #3. 27-9 Dirtbags Charlotte, who lost in the finals to Canes - Simpson at the WWS, remained at #4 and 12-4 Canes - Hood dropped to #5 after they fell to 4-4 in their last 8 games. The 15-5 NCDB Rivercats, who boast wins over SBA Premier and Canes - Hood, remained at #6 this week, and are close behind the top 5. Outside of the top 5, Dirtbags East (13th to 10th) and the Carolina Blue Sox (19th to 16th) were the big movers after impressive showings at the Top Gun WWS.
13u
The 13u age group was largely inactive this past week. The top 12 remained unchanged, however we did move the New Bern Flames down from 13th to 18th after going 2-2 this weekend against an unranked field, despite winning a championship. The New Bern has been hard to get a read on and they have had some widely variant results, so we could see them moving back up quite rapidly either this fall or next spring. We did not make any other significant changes in this age group.