So who's the "Top" teams in 3-A this year?

Aycock's strong point will be hitting (especially at home,small field) they do have some hitters, probably as good as anybody.
Pitching and defense will be subject. They should win their conference fairly easy, EW should give them a good run along with Triton, will be a fun conference to follow, good baseball.

 

I agree with you on the hitting. Not going to be an easy out 1-9. Don't agree on the defense. In my opinion, that will be a strength. This team does not make a lot of errors. They make the routine out and the occaisional exceptional one. You'll have to earn everything you get and that's good enough to win consistently at this level. You may be right about the pitching. Don't know that they'll win a lot of 1-0 and 2-1 games. I feel the pitchers will generally keep them in the ballgame and give the team a chance to win, but the offense will probably have to generate more than one or two runs. JMO

 

Mount Pleasant should be solid in the West. Theyr'e in the new South Piedmont Conference. They have 3 position players ranked by Perfect Game in the top 40 in North Carolina for class of 2011 (juniors). They should be able to hit and field. Don't know buch about their pitching.

 

Marvin Ridge will be very strong on the west side of the state. They have most of the starters returning from last year and a number of solid players coming up from JV. It will not take long to see if they are a contender or pretender as they start off with a very difficult schedule. (AK twice, South Meck, and Charlotte Christian over the first 5 games)
Although Weddington lost 3 solid seniors, they also lost two starters and several other stong JV players to the new Cuthbertson HS. They will be young, but should not prove to be an easy win for anybody. Pitchers Boone, Kersnowski, and the left hander Newsome will most likely see the majority of the innings. The middle infield will tough with the two sophomores Huneycutt and Prillaman.

 

karlrocket, is it time already? Man, I've been hibernating in this cave and just stuck my head out long enough to see all this preseason discussion. Can't wait.

Great info about all the teams too, but you guys know in HS ball the great pitchers will shut down everyone else,,,,, the best pitchers in my area all graduated (Lomo- LNorman, Shive- ERowan, GFurr- MPleasant),,,,, so for all the teams mentioned above, who are the great pitchers that these teams have returning? You guys know that horse will set apart the contenders from the pretenders.

Locally,,,, btw I agree about MPleasant mainly because they have one of the best coaches (Tyson) in the area who always gets the most out of his players. I know NW Cabarrus was hit hard by the opening of Cox Mill HS, but NW still has the 2 younger Seager brothers so they'll have some hitters, and there's a pretty good pitcher (West) out there too. Kannapolis has struggled in recent seasons but they have a couple seniors who have played 4 years of varsity ball and had pretty good careers, so they should be better.

East Rowan and West Rowan, always strong, they just reload. Quite possibly the best player in the area this year will be South Rowan senior Maverick Miles, great size, speed, power,,,, was recently selected to participate in a national allstar game in Arizona later this month. Let me hit the bushes and I'll post more later.

 

It's always interesting to go back & see how our predictions turn out. Last year, several posters listed a pre-season Top 10 that didn't include Lake Norman. We know how that turned out. Lake Norman defeated Eastern Wayne for the title. Most everybody was listing Eastern Wayne as a favorite, which turned out to be true.

 

It is fun,,, and btw give me props about Lake Norman, I believe it was little ole tj who was talking about Lake Norman when most everyone thought I was only talking about fishing or waterskiiing...

Btw, for anyone that don't know, Lake Norman moved up to 4A this year. Even though Lomo graduated, look for LN to make noise again this year in the 4A ranks, they were deep.

 

You're right! You were the first one to list Lake Norman as a contender, along with East Rowan & Mooresville from the North Piedmont. I don't believe Impact had Lake Norman in their Top 10 Pre-season poll either. The North Piedmont should produce 2-3 contenders once again (East Rowan, will be strong again, I'm sure)

 

Impact didn't list Lake Norman early, they had West Rowan and East Rowan.

As for picking Lake Norman, honestly I had them behind both East Rowan and Mooresville at the beginning of year, although I knew they had the best lefty in the area, maybe one of best in state. But yes I guess I was a "bandwagoner" last year, because it was actually quite easy to see them as the cream of the local crop and a serious state title contender when I started seeing how good their #2 and #3 pitchers were.

 

3A

Good teams that you picked RM the favorite