2012 Season for the chattanooga area

[Hawg]

Well it is getting closer, the 2012 season, any thoughts or predictions for it? How do you feel about how they are doing the best of preps this year? Who are the favorites in single A, double AA, triple AAA and division 2 AA? Who are The players to watch this year? What team will be the biggest surprise of the year? Who will make the biggest improvement from last year? Who will suffer the biggest dropoff from last year? If you had to pick an all area team by position, 9 in the field and a DP, who would they be?

Edited January 3, 2012 by Hawg

[Indian]

This isn't exactly going out on a limb but until anyone proves different you still have to say Soddy-Daisy, Central, Grace will be right there in their classifications at least in the area. Right now I'd pick Marion in Class A over Grace but they do still have some good players like Dean, I believe was an outfielder last year.

 

I've said East Hamilton as a "darkhorse" the last couple of seasons, they seem to have at least 2 future Division I players so they ought to be competitive with most teams. After EH and Central, the rest of that district has really dropped off. Hard to believe 3 other teams have won the state title out of that group though every season is different and maybe they will bounce back.

 

AAA, usually is a two or three team race and my guess is more of the same. East Hamilton will definitely be moving to Class AAA in a couple of seasons, already have enough students for the move and Central is borderline, so maybe it will be more competitive down the line then.

 

AA, this is a biased pick but I'd expect Sequatchie to be up there with as good a chance as any in the area to make a run in the postseason. They return nearly all of their top producers from last season and have a good mix of senior, junior and sophomore players. Freshman group has some potential too. Bledsoe, E Hamilton and Central as mentioned, Meigs, Polk could all be up there too. Sweetwater, I don't follow too much as they're on the edge of the area teams but seems like they always have a tough team too.

 

I don't like the Best of Preps format. Having an all-city/all-area combined team wouldn't be too bad but combining that with North Georgia that doesn't even play in the same season is too much, I'm guessing around 75 schools. I don't know if it's a money issue, they had to have about 2 weeks of full color, full page photos in the fall alone when there was Area, City, North Georgia football plus girls soccer, cross country. Same late in the school year for baseball, softball, track, boys soccer. I'd hope some schools with influence didn't complain and get things changed.

 

This was part of the reasoning, in the small column on the change: "This move allows us to be more flexible in every sport and reward deserving players who may be in tougher geographical areas while still honoring the same number of athletes and inviting those selected to the banquet."

 

The smaller schools will be left out of first team, photos, more often unless they have some kind of quota system in place which wouldn't be fair to anyone, either. It's already been shown in football where the kid from Bledsoe had an amazing amount of total yards and touchdowns, helped his team go 9-1 and didn't even make first team due to the players from much larger schools and from North Georgia. Individual awards aren't as important as team accomplishments in any way but if they're going to have it they should give all the schools an equal shot. Batting .500 in AAA vs batting .500 in A, the AAA player will and should be selected if it's down to those two players.

[BlackMetallic]

AAA and AA are all about the two pitchers....Nunley and Willard. Hard to go against Soddy in AAA. East Hamilton will have an outstanding offensive team and finally a real coach but there is no shut down pitcher so it seems Central will have the upper hand again. As Indian said, there does not seem to be anything else in the city that can keep up. Meigs will probably be the other AA team in SE TN that has a chance to go to the Boro. A will be up for grabs now that Walker has moved on. Silverdale may finally have a chance to do something this year though Grace certainly still has some great players. Baylor should be the favorite again amongst the private schools to win it all this year.

[Hawg]

The thing that does not make sense to me about the best of preps is the combining of the Georgia players and Tennessee players. I understand the combining of the city and area players for the most part, in most cases they all play each other either thru their regular season schedule or tournaments. But the Georgia players play a completely different season. There is a tremendous amount of controversay just in Chattanooga over the different classes and the strength of competition each one faces. Now throw the Georgia players in the mix with no way of comparing them to each other. I can see one of two things happening, either somebody will have their mind made up about a Georgia player and not look at a Tennessee player or the Georgia players will be forgotten about when the Tennessee season has just been played. The only way to alleviate the problem is to have a quota system. But this would undermine the purpose of having one team. If you are going to have only one 1st team, 2nd team, and 3rd team it has to be the best players period no matter what state or class.

[Indian]

I understand how they wanted to make it more prestigious, but it will require a lot more from players from the smaller schools, outlying schools, to make it, to match the accomplishments of players from top Hamilton County and North Georgia teams. A solution might be the have the first team with photos, second and third team (all going to the banquet) under the new system, then just have a list of first and second team again as it was by North Georgia, county and area. That's for all sports.

 

All that said, as stated before, the individual awards aren't nearly as important as what the teams do on the field. With more schools like East Hamilton, Heritage in NW GA, etc opening it will just get tougher for the individuals.

Edited January 26, 2012 by Indian

[Hunter1]

Rankings

1)Soddy

2)Baylor

3)Central

4)Grace-East Hamilton

5)Marion

 

I am not sure why the Best of Preps changed, but I don't think it will be fair at all. There are too many deserving kids with too few spots in this format.

Edited January 27, 2012 by Hunter1

[Indian]

Tough to pick, especially going by positions. That's not including North Georgia, where you have the pitcher from Gordon Lee who was undefeated (individually and team), one from NW Whitfield who is commited to Ole Miss as a junior, one from I believe Gordon Lee signed with UTC, and other really, really good players.

 

P-Kelsey Nunley, sr, Soddy-Daisy

C-Cassie Pickett, so, Baylor

IF-Haley Andrus, so, Baylor

IF-Cassidy Hackney, jr, Soddy-Daisy

IF-Meredith Mitchell, sr, Sequatchie

IF-Brooke Womack, jr, Chattanooga Central

OF-Madison Boyd, sr, GPS

OF-Bethany Cowart, sr, Grace

OF-Shaliyah Geathers, jr, East Hamilton

DH-Sidney Hooper, jr, Walker Valley

[tsmart]

Well there are some pretty good players in the area but wow.. Homework needs to be done.

 

 

Agree on some but off base on others. Hard to venture a guess especially with players not going to play like opponents.

 

Classifications need to be grouped seperately. Hard to compare and evaluate when teams play lesser opponents and vice versa on a regular basis. Not knocking the lesser opponents but when decent players play most or all teams in their district that are very weak this makes these players #'s look so good. Most people on here are all about numbers. And no... everyone does not play the same teams... Everyone has agendas based on the area they live or attend school. Very political... Just a rant... I'm out

[Indian]

Can we have your picks? This was asked for in the first post of the topic, if anyone wanted to throw them out before the season starts.

[tsmart]

My point is you can not pick it and the Times Free Press cannot either. There are no factors that go into it. I believe you know what I mean, without pointing out poor districts and teams. In other words you cannot get this by looking at the paper. If they want to break it out by classification that would work better plus it still is political with agendas and also who keeps score. But that is another subject for another day.

 

There are good players around here including those on your list but apples to apples tells the story.

[Indian]

I did pick it, the TFP will later on, too. Of course that's not the "correct" list, there is no perfect way of picking something like that when it's all opinion and subject to debate. It was asked for, to generate some debate prior to the season and I'm guessing the debate hoped for wasn't "why even talk about it." It's the same for any such all-star team, even when you look at the major league baseball all-star game there are always contested selections.

 

For the small school players I picked-and a couple of them play for schools among the largest in AA so you can't really call them small schools, I went by their stats, what I've seen of them in the summer and what colleges seem to be showing interest. I think some of the non-seniors have already given non-binding verbals. All of the teams, even the Class AAA teams, see their share of lesser competition during the year in district games and sometimes in tournament pool games. You could go with just Soddy-Daisy, Ooltewah, GPS and Baylor, the two traditionally strongest area AAA teams and the area D2 teams usually fighting for a state title-but clearly there are players around other than at those schools.

 

Something that might get under your skin even more , I had a 2nd and 3rd team in mind too and there are more Class AA and A players on it.

 

If it's that awful, let's see your list, if not, why bother complaining about someone's opinion. There will be plenty of time to talk about the games when they begin.

Edited January 29, 2012 by Indian

[tsmart]

I totally agree there is no correct list. Did not mean to get under your skin!!!!