[silverknight4li]

Briggs has 7 starters back, only lost 1 pitcher and 1 OF.

[Redfrozenrope]

Let's be realistic about this. The way the City has re-aligned the district there are going to be the same 3 teams every year competing for the City Championship. No offense to Eastmoor, but unless they are able to recruit some talent out of the middle schools, they are not going to be one of those 3 schools.

It really comes down to where the kids are coming from. Centennial, Whetstone, and Briggs are all getting kids who have played ball in middle school and likely are involved with travel ball to some extent. .The top 3 middle school baseball teams are typically Ridgeview, Dominion, and Wedgewood. Those 3 middle schools feed into the top high school teams.

The change in the catchment doesn't change things all that much other than that Wedgewood used to at least partially feed into West, who historically could compete with Briggs in the South division. Now West has Starling and Westmoor as the primary feeders, two middle schools that didn't even have baseball 2 years ago. With that said, Briggs won't have much competition at all in the South for the foreseeable future. Look for Marion-Franklin to jump into a distant number 2 spot in the South division. West, Independence, and Walnut Ridge will likely struggle and compete for the 3rd spot.

In the North, Brookhaven lost all of it's feeder middle schools and has become much smaller. Also, Northland is losing the Forrest Park league that used to provide them with some kids who had at least played little league ball before. Every year it is Centennial and Whetstone fighting for the top spot with Northland, Beechcroft, and Brookhaven fighting for a third place spot.

This comes back to my original point...don't expect to see anyone in the City Championship besides Briggs, Whetstone/Centennial.

[chinups]

Red, when are the Bruins going to win another city title ?

The past four years the north divisions 1st and 2nd place teams were #1 and #2 in CPS. Watching Sean Kennedy K 14 batters a few years ago was sad, after he only beat Whetstone 4-2 with 2 k's.


Beechroft and Brookhaven lost a lot this year they will be very young next season. Northland will be the team in the north , if everyone gets grades the will beat whetstone and centennial.

Whetstone has a good freshman class coming in, they got dudes coming in from every where. Centennial has a good group back but the players run that team, big mess on bethel rd


Will Briggs finally get another title ? After all they started something like 5 soph's. If Briggs win's it in 13 they win roll off 3 in a row



Early prediction

Briggs 16
Northland 4

City Championship

[Wrong Path]

No one in the city league will touch Briggs the next 2-3 years

[canofcorn]

Redfrozenrope makes all of the right connections with his post - losing feeder schools and little league organizations will hurt schools like West, Northland and Beechcroft. Centennial always seems to attract a player or two from the CCL that wasn't getting enough time on the field in the previous year. Whetstone and Centennial have the feeder schools and the little league organizations that constantly reload their rosters. It will continue to be Briggs, Whetstone and Centennial as your top 3 with the occassional break through year from Northland, West or Eastmoor. Unfortunate circumstances but true.

As a Past President of Forest Park Baseball, nothing pained me more than to watch that program fall flat on its face. Lack of participation from parents totally destroyed the program as there were only 3-5 parents and non-parents who really got involved and volunteered the time to make a go of it. All of those kids are now playing over at NCS and Westerville which will do nothing but feed the schools that are already doing fine with their numbers.

[samdw5]

wow, we were off on our predictions last year. lol


centennial @ briggs this year