Scouting Reports: All Teams

the SW4A will be wide open this year and will come down to who wins the big games, and who takes care of business when they are supposed to. even though south is ranked 3rd in the state i dont think preseason rankings are worth anything. south should have a good season though with arrington, shelton, b-rob, ben kerr, pope, vartanian, worrel, just to name a few. myers park strength will undoubtedly be their pitching, with woodard, wilson, thats a good one two punch, they also have logan smith and craig earls. the bulk of their offense will come from woodard, smith, wilson, rollins, and krammer. east should have a good season as well, they have a lot of returning players, and a ton of senior leadership. hill, white, burnham, neal, fulginiti, mayer, are the seniors, plus juniors teague, gehringer, and buchanan, and catcher sophmore joey savago. providence is loaded with talent, they didnt lose much from last year. tyler collins will lead the pitching staff, with matt taffazoli, alex clay, alex martin and many other juniors that could have an impact. their outfiled will likely be mason dietrich and either little or crosby, taff will play third when not pitching, mccurdy at short, little may play second depending, and collins will play first, and walker will dh and play some first. Butler should be up there too, they are loaded with some talented juniors, but lost a lot last year, the loss of boob may hurt them, but haus, johanson, josey, sansevero will help the team to be competitive, and in the mix of things. Waddel may come out to shock some people this year, krimminger has been throwing well, and de silva is a pretty good stick and glove. dont no any players from olympic but they are always a scrappy team that u cant let hang around or they'll come up with a W.
sorry for any misspelled words

 

Late in the season in the SW4A, do you think East will have enough arms to get them to win the big games. I think their bats are good, but I'm questioning their staff. Someone help me out here. After Buchannan, who can win some big games?

 

Looking from OUTSIDE THE CONFERENCE at East Meck.

Craig Burnham should give them enough ammo for the arms race to at least contend. If he is the #2 guy, you still need to round out the rotation with a couple more guys. #4-#5 may be JV guys that help out on varsity....You need a solid #3 guy .... someone who throws strikes.

The two teams in the SW4A that are ahead in the arms race are South Meck and Myers Park. They both have quality arms down through #4 and even to #5, that are good. Butler will have to rely on filling some of the positions with Juniors & Sophomores. Waddell has a great #1, but no real depth. Olympic has the depth but not the experience yet. Garringer, no one is talking about. Providence is solid....but I don't think outstanding.

Next year, the conference may turn upside down with all of the quality senior pitching that is graduating. South, Butler & Olympic have talent in the pipe-line.... I don't know about the others yet.

 

Do the other Meca-8 teams have anything this year? Harding, Vance, West Meck, Central Cabarrus, etc?

 

#1: Vance lost at least 4 players to transfers that I know of, there may have been more. Hopewell has their schedule online under ihigh. When I look at it, all the other games are listed, but when you get to Vance, it says "open". I don't know if that means that Vance isn't fielding a team this year or not. They were fair last year but I look for them to go down over the next few years. They may be the cellar dwellers until they rebuild the program.

#2: Central Cabarrus has some great athletes. Where they hurt is in the pitching. The had an injury in that area last year. They are going to have a very young pitching staff also. Central hits the ball very well. They can out-offense weak defensive teams. Definately a top-4 pick (with ease).

#3: Harding lost their best young pitching prospect to Olympic via transfer. They were a little thin to begin with. Harding plays smart ball, they just need a little more talent. When their defense plays well, they can "run with the dogs".

#4: West Charlotte & West Meck both have some very good players, they just don't have enough. Neither team is over powering but both execute very well. Any one can loose to them (including Hopewell). The are alot like Harding.

You already know about Indy, Hopewell & North. Indy & North have tradition and depth. Hopewell has all the seniors and the best pitcher. After the non-conference games are done, the first week of the conference season, Hopewell has North, Olympic & Central Cabarrus. The first week of non-conference play, North has South Meck, Providence & Butler. Depth (or lack of it) should show up early and be a good predictor of the season to come. I haven't seen the schedules for the other schools yet and the early non-conference games are a decent predictor of depth, if a team is willing to get tested.

I was kidding Braves earlier that the conference standings at the end will be #1: Hopewell and then a 7 way tie for second. That may not be too far from the truth.

 

The Providence folks haven't found this forum yet.... so I will help post for them.

Talking about pitchers; look at this lineup

Tyler Collins
Matt Taffozzoli
Alex Clay
AJ Mason
..and they have another 1/2 dozen on the bench who can pitch

Although Collins is a great player, I really like John Walker at 1st base. The kid has a beautiful swing...dangerous

They have a ton of talent in their underclassmen.

All the talk about Myers Park, South Meck, East Meck and Butler is moot, if these guys play to their potential. They are soooo deep!
The only way they will lose the conference is by beating themselves...and you don't know how the new coach will affect the team.

The reason I believe that MP will win this year is they have someone nobody else has...and that's Robert Woodard. There is no other school that has a player with the leadership that Woodard has. He can will a team to win. Not to take anything away from any other great players in Charlotte, but there has been very few players in this city that display the work ethic, determination and the mental toughness that this kid does.

Now, I understand it's a team game and no one player can win by himself, but with the talent that MP has and the leadership that they will receive, I believe they will win the conference.

 

You know, that's a crying shame about Vance. For years they always had the most talent in the conference. They didn't always play the best, but they were the most talented. Ever since they ran off one of my friends as head coach because of threats and troublesome parents, I always felt they deserved whatever they get. But it still is a shame.

 

braves, i agree providence has all the talent in the world, but talent only gets u so far. last year it took providence half the season to play as a team, now they have to adjust to a new coach. i think it'll be a hard road,
but good luck to all those guys

 

I agree. Think about what the Seniors have gone through: Colquit, Neville and now the new coach. They are always having to adjust. But by the end of the year they will be the strongest.

The best coach for that team, if he could have stayed, was Brad Fisher. That young man could coach and also knew all the players.