in the absence of any new content (which i promise is coming...), an open thread to discuss whatever you want in the world of high school ultimate. i see that the junior worlds team post a few back has been getting a bunch of comments, so feel free to post your thoughts here.
who are the best players in high school now? who were the best? what makes the best player? who are the best teams? why are they the best teams?
start the spewing, the only opinion that sucks here is the one you think and then decide not to post.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
open thread
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17 comments:
Id say in highschool the best player is who can lead their team the best. Its really important to be strong as a team rather than have just a few start players...although that does work sometimes..
of course it does help if that leader can do almost anything...In juniors you can be a completely versatile player but i feel like thats harder in the club scene
i would agree. this is where the rivalry between east and west pa comes in, east has the better teams, but west has arguably the better players
my stance - players dont win chamionships, or games for that matter - teams do.
yo mccabe, can u put a link to ultimatetalk.com on the side so i dont have to click every one of the blogs to read them. hell just get rid of those other blogs cause they all get posted on ultimatetalk anyways
i know this sounds mean but i really don't see how west pa has gotten this reputation for better players. could it possibly be that just the other players around them are worse?
i mean, if you put like a bunch of the guys from peyote over at west pa, and split them up amongst the teams, people would probably say the peyote kids were amazing.
and so someone like frank harris of peyote gets less recognition in eastern pa because hes paired up against people like noah saul/isaac saul/scott wright/venose.
What do you guys think about the new juniors league, CPHUL?
If you play against Peyote, you'll find that they work incredibly well as a team, but their only superstar is Noah. All the rest of them are solid players with good throws and fundamentals, but what makes them good is how well they play together. That's why they are first in the rankings now.
The top four teams in the open division for the fall season are Pennsbury, Princeton, Columbia, and Wissahickon, with Princeton being a newcomer to the top rankings. What do people think of them?
Princeton is sort of like Pennsbury in that they work well as a team, but they don't have a superstar, except for maybe captain Angus Pacala. They are also one of only two teams to beat Pennsbury this season.
i think a central pa league is definitely a move in the right direction for pennsylvania as well as other states.
it seems like right now all of the high school leagues in the country are located around metropolitan areas - seattle, atlanta, philly, pittsburgh, etc. what we lack as a sport is the mid-size and small town recognition.
i would wager a decent portion of imaginary money that you if you polled a random sampling of high school students in both rural and metro areas a much much higher percentage would have at least heard of ultimate in the metro areas as opposed to rural.
is this something that will eventually change? absolutely the way i see it. its just part of the seemingly slow progression of the sport (in reality though, when you step back with some perspective, no sport has ever grown this fast, its amazing)
another reason why i think cphul is cool, itll give those penn state guys something to do while their school is still being a buncha bleeps about suspension of club status etc.
the deal with the national rankings -
someone brought up the question of how reliable/what we think of the nationl rankings.
right now, i think they are the most accurate depiction of the standings of the high school teams in the nation.
as it stands, out of all the high schools that played in the fall season, pennsbury can beat all of them. plain and simple.
the trick is thus - many many many teams do not have fall seasons. amherst, and most of the seattle teams included. and this is where the spring gets interesting, we assume pennsbury has this big head start going into the spring, having played the fall season as a team etc.
but they have to remember many of the other teams with established programs went into the fall like a lot of college teams do, as a warmup, to get their younger players some pt, to introduce people to the game etc.
to their credit - pennsbury has been playing tournaments into december, beating other well known programs like yorktown, lc bird, etc.
im not sure exactly where im going with this, but this spring season is going to be very interesting to watch. pennsbury wants this, you can tell that just by looking at their schedule, they played 25 games this fall - in four different states. they mean business, the only question is, will they be able to keep up this sort of intense schedule until the end of april when it counts, and will it ever be enough for the likes of amherst.
like i said, its going to be a very interesting spring season.
what teams do you think have a chance to go to easterns based on the fall season?
Pennsbury's two fall tournament wins probably have set them up to be in unless they lose their spot on their own by playing a terrible spring.
Columbia is a traditional powerhouse and will likely make Easterns with a solid run in the spring.
Princeton has been getting some big wins, but their only tournament win was at a tourney that didn't have Wissahickon, Columbia, or Pennsbury at it.
CHUF looks like they could be back as a top Eastern team, but I want to see them play against the other top teams before I set them in stone at Easterns.
Mt. Lebo probably has the best shot out of the host city (Pittsburgh) and has had a good fall, but PHUL isn't as strong as PHUEL, so we gotta see them against other teams. Hampton also has a shot, but I don't expect more than one team from PHUL to make it, so these guys have to battle it out.
Umm... Amherst... Their fall practices are probably at the same level as Pennsylvania tournaments.
Watch out for North Hills of PHUL. Spring should be a ton better than their fall.
Madison West looks like they'll be real strong as they open 4-0 after an Easterns birth in 2005. Also, the 6-0 team out of Ohio might provide the state's first representative that I can remember.
This is all from records, as I;m sure there are 6-10 teams who will be in the running who have yet to record any results.
wanting to shift the focus from East to West...
California (and in my case Alameda) has yet to be involved in any High School competition outside of the state...
Wondering how Washington and Oregon teams are shaping up for the season.
Specifially teams like Nathan Hale, Lakeside, Churchhill, South Eugene, Corvallis and other Westerns participants
Hold on, im a little late but a thing about the pennsbury kids. yeah little noah (as he is known when big noah is around) may be the superstar of that team but you cannot say that the other guys are just good cause of fundamentals. yes they play well together but thats cause they are great players. they have played on other teams at other tournies with kids who were supposed to be their rivals and they more than held their own against college competition. franky frank, scotty and venose deserve more credit than having to be in noah's shadow. And any college would be lucky to have them, all they need is the discipline and training that the college game gives and they can be a great asset to any team. also amherst is too busy whooping on college teams at their own tournies to have a fall or spring HS season besides their HS tourney and easterns. Mccabe, where is that ultimatetalk link, im too lazy to look at individual blogs
Given that the contributers to this site (great site, btw) are largely from either Pitt, PA or Pennsbury, it naturally follows that there should be a lot of talk about Pennsbury.
I'm not saying the talk is not unmerited, just that perhaps other contributors should be recruited to talk up other areas (like Cali/West Coast, Georgia (Pai High). PlayUltimate is a great blog, but more balanced coverage would be nice.
Having said all that, I have to admit though, Pennsbury has got me curious. Where the heck were they last year? What accounts for their quick-turnaround?
right now we have contributors from -
philly
pittsburgh
arizona
oregon
cincinatti
(contributor bios are coming within the next week or so)
and we are always looking for more contributors, especially from areas which we do not have covered already - massachussettes, georgia, washington, california etc
pennsbury was pretty good last year - reaching quarterfinals of the pa state tournament, what has made them better this year is that they did not graduate a single player from last years team, and also they have beefed up their schedule going to a ton more tournaments than they did last year.
what is required of a contributor?
I'm thinking I could do it, as I have my hand in most of the high-school going-ons in California...
all that is required is that you regularly update the site with information from your area, if you are interested email - playultimateblog@gmail.com
Columbia isn't the same as they were in the past years. they graduated too many good players and will not be a big threat in the east anymore. Pennsbury is good and i agree with the statements you guys said up there but in NJ princeton is clearly the best team this year.
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