11u
SBA Futures and Canes Baseball NC - Foster have been the two dominate teams in this age group for over a year, and have battled back and forth for the top spot. That may be beginning to changes. Recently, the Futures suffered a defeat at the hands of Dirtbags Black. This caused a bit of a shift in our rankings, and moved Canes - Foster to the top spot, the Futures to #2, and Dirtbags Black up to #3. Rawlings Prospects NC have settled in at #4, with the removal of West Raleigh Blue. Dirtbags East has moved into the #5 spot on the strength of an 11-4 record this spring, including a win over #8 Canes Baseball NC - Naylor, 2 wins over #10 NCDB Rivercats, and a win over #18 Carolina Thunder. Two of their losses came against 12u teams, with another coming at the hand of Canes - Naylor. The Belmont Bandits have entered the top 20 this spring and currently sit at #7. The Bandits finished 10th in our final 2017-2018 10u rankings, but were removed from the rankings this fall as they do not play baseball together in the fall. They are off to an 8-1 start this spring with wins over #6 Canes Baseball NC - Slaydon and #15 Copperheads - Snell/Heis. The SBA Nationals are a new addition to the 11u top 20 this spring, coming in at #11. They're 7-1 this spring with a win over #12 Athlete's Advantage Yard Goats, and look to be one of the more competitive teams in the Charlotte Metro region. Mission Vipers Black have recently been added to the top 20 at #13, after posting a 7-1 record this far this spring including a win over the SBA Nationals. The Cleveland Wildcats have also moved into the rankings this spring, coming in at #14 after a 9-1 start. Athlete's Lab have moved into the top 20 at #16 after a 6-0 start has them at 20-3 overall as an 11u team. The Carolina Thunder have fallen from #12 to #18 in our rankings after they've got off to a 3-5 start this spring. The final new team in our rankings, Area Stars Orange, came in at #20 this week. They are 5-1 against 11u competition, going 1-1 against #10 NCDB Rivercats.
12u
The top of the 12u age group has remained largely the same as our 2018 End-of-Fall Rankings. #1 Canes Baseball NC - Simpson will look to get their spring underway this weekend, although they wont be at the Beast of the East. We did move Dirtbags Legends up from #4 to #3 after their semifinal appearance at the Atlanta Spring Super NIT. We move Five Star Carolina - Neyra up from 6th to 5th after they defeated the #8 Kernersville Bulldogs this spring. The LBC Attack dropped a bit from 6th to 12th after two early spring losses, but a 4-0 weekend this past weekend has them back up to #12 this week and trending up. The LKN Hurricanes have been added to our rankings this spring, now at #13, after an 8-1 start this spring including wins over the LBC Attack, #14 Vision Bandits, and #17 Carolina Blue Sox. The Carolina Astros have dropped slightly this spring from #11 to #16 after a 7-4 start. Recently added two new teams to the top 20, Golden Spikes at #19 and WCW Black at #20. Golden Spikes are 11-4 as an 11u team and 4-0 this spring including a win over #20 WCW Black. WCW Black is 27-10-1 as a 12u team, including a win over Mountain Region #5, Carolina Renegades this spring.
13u
There hasn't been much movement in the 13u age group as many of these teams have either not played or have been missing numerous players due to middle school baseball. We have, however, made one significant change that we should detail here. In our 2018 End-of Fall 13u recap, we had Dirtbags MVP over Canes Baseball Eastern NC for the top spot. We justified this based on a better overall record as well as a slightly better resume in terms of competition and who they had beat. We recently moved the Canes to the top spot and dropped Dirtbags MVP to #2. We know that the Dirtbags have not had their full squad yet this spring, and that when they do we have no doubt they will compete for the top spot, as they have done since we started our rankings. Nevertheless, we can't ignore their 4-4-1 start, including a 14-1 defeat to Dirtbags TBM this past weekend, a win which propelled TBM up into the #3 spot. The Canes, on the other hand, are 5-0 this spring with wins over #9 TPA Nationals - Christman and #15 New Bern Flames. The Sanford Cobras have fallen from #3 to #6 in the early spring after a 5-3 start thus far this spring.