There were only a few ranked teams in action, and fortunately some of them went head-to-head. We made a few slight changes to the rankings this week, and we’ve summarized those below.
8u
#1-8 remained the same as none of these teams were in action last week. The story of the 8u age group this week, however, is the rise of the NCDB Rivercats. This group went 9-8 in the fall, and started the spring 3-6. Since that time, however, they’ve won 8 straight games including two wins over #7 Youngsville Phantoms and a win over #10 Dirtbags East. All of their losses this spring have come against ranked teams with 4 against #1 Carolina Threshers, a loss to the Phantoms, and a loss to #12 Greenville Athletics. The remainder of the top 15 was largely unchanged.
9u
The 9u age group was not very active this past Mother’s Day weekend. #1-12 all remained the same with only #10 Five Star Carolina – Hilton in action. The Piedmont Panthers fell from 13th to 17th after a 2-1 weekend dropped them to 11-6 this spring. This is a team that went 23-1 this past fall, so they are certainly capable of being one of the top 9u teams in the state. The Stealth Elite Eagles moved into our top 20 after a 3-1 weekend including a win over the Piedmont Panthers.
10u
#1-4 remained the same, as only #2 SBA Canes – Marconi was in action last weekend, playing up in the 11u age group where the lost in the finals against 11u #12 Vision Bandits. We did not penalize them for this loss. #7 Dirtbags East went 2-1 in Top Gun play this past weekend, scoring a win against #16 Youngsville Heat and going 1-1 against #12 NCDB Rivercats. The Rivercats moved up from #17 this week after going 2-1 this past weekend, including a win over Youngsville and a win in the championship game against Dirtbags East. The Heat dropped from 14th to 16th after an 0-2 weekend against Dirtbags East and the Rivercats. We dropped the Rawlings Stars from 8th to 11th after they went 2-1 this past weekend, dropping the championship game to the unranked Kannapolis Cannons. We also dropped Aces – Edwards from 15th to 20th after a 1-1 weekend, and dropped the FV Wildcats to 17th after an 0-2 weekend that featured a loss to unranked 10u Carolina Outlaws and a loss to an 11u opponent.
11u
There were only minimal changes in the 11u age groups. The Vision Bandits had a tie against an unranked opponent so the dropped one spot. The Carolina Rams had an impressive 3-0 weekend and we bumped them up two spots from 18th to 16th. They have an impressive 12-3 record this spring, and 37-8 record overall across USSSA and Top Gun, but just haven’t seen the same level of competition as some of our other top teams and don’t have a win against any team ranked higher than they are, as far as we can tell.
12u
There were no changes in the 12u rankings this week as nearly all of the top 20 were inactive. #20 Canes – Charlotte did go 3-0 this past weekend, but we did not feel their performance warranted moving up the rankings just yet.
13u
Most of the 13’s were inactive last weekend. We dropped the Naturals two spots, from 11th to 13th after and 0-2 weekend playing up in the 14u division. Otherwise the 13u ranking remained the same as the week prior.