Who are the teams that should be strong this year?

Southern Lee High school should be very strong coming out of the 3-A Cape Fear Valley Conference. Lost only 2 starters from the conference championship team this past year. They had a very strong season during in their summerball leauge, making it to the third round in summer league state play offs.

 

IMO, Rocky Mount may have more overall talent this year, but you can never discount the importance of the role seniors play on a team, and RM lost 5, four of whom were starters and key contributors. Also, along with picking up Hobbs Johnson, RM picked up MIF Michael Whitehead. Both He and Hobbs move over from the local private school ranks and will likely have a short adjustment period, but I'm predicting big things from these two. This will be the first year I can remember Coach Smith having the luxury of dealing with more than just a little competition at several spots.

 

West area.......

1A: Murphy returns all their starters including 4 pitchers, 2 lhp. Some quality sticks and solid defensively. They will be good.

2A: West Henderson returns, well it is west henderson, it doesn't matter what they return they will win 20 games, and they do return some quality players and pitchers. Patton looks to be very good this year, saw them during the fall and they were solid everywhere.

3A: Enka will be tough, RS Central and TC will be good as well. Asheville was improved last year, just don't know how much they lost and how it will effect them.

4A: Not real sure

 

Pittssboro Northwood Mid State 2A

Lost one player to graduation. They return a very strong senior class led by Martin, Hackney, Polak, Stone, Goodwin, and Houck, all have been starters the past two to three years. Juniors Brice, Wade and Jeffries have one to two years starting experience.

This team can swing the bat and put runs on the board in bunches. They are solid defensively. They don't have that "lights out" starting pitcher that can carry a team during the playoffs, but the pitching is solid and experienced. If one of the arms steps it up, this team could go deep in the post season.

Between the baseball and softball teams, you may want to wear a hardhat when they are both playing at home. Both of them can light up a scoreboard!

 

Greenville Rose (4A Defending Champions)

The good news:

We have pitching with four potential starters (all seniors) in ECU signee RHP Tanner Merritt (5-0 last year but missed the last half of the season due to an arm injury), returning starting RHP Paul McIntosh (6-1) and 6'6" twins RHP Danny Deiters and LHP Teddy Deiters. All four are solid.

We have at least three junior pitchers that have a lot of potential.

Our only returning starter is a great one, catcher Patrick Roy. Patrick is an excellent hitter, excellent arm, excellent behind the plate and a very good leader.

The bad news:

We lost to graduation our starting 1b, 2b, ss, 3b, and all 3 outfielders.

However we do have a group of seniors that have been patiently waiting their turn and have the potential to be a solid group. Someone I am really excited about is junior Chase McDonald. He is @ 6'4", 240 1b with a quick bat. I think by the time he graduates, he will be one of the best power hitters (and hitter) to come out of Rose in a long time. This past summer in senior Babe Ruth I saw him check his swing and the right fielder caught the ball about 10 feet in front of the fence (316 feet). I mean a 300 ft. fly ball on a check swing is just downright sick.

I think pitching will have to carry us until our new starters get their feet wet. We may start a little slow but by the end of the season I think Rose will be solid once again from top to bottom. At least I hope so.

 

Doc, It's still Rose. You need not worry.

 

You need to understand

something about Rose for all of you who are reading about all those graduating players.

They have a Freshman team
They have a JV team.
They have a Varsity team

On that Freshman team there will be several guys that would be starting at many HS varsity programs.

On that JV team there will be several guys that would be starting on many varsity HS programs.

On that Varsity team there are many Jrs that did not play a whole lot that would have been starters on many HS varsity teams.

So what you have is a program that develops its guys up the ranks and when they reach the status as a starter they are more than ready to step in and contribute in a big way. So it doesnt matter how many starters they lost. They have guys that can and will play at the next level that will only be starters in HS for one year , two years at the most. And they will still be the team to beat. They dont have a good team , they dont have a good year , they have a great program.