If anyone is interested in what's going on nationally at 2028, Mad Dog hosted a tourney out in Santa Barbara this weekend. Texas Nationals won it all. They lost to Kings CO on Saturday 7-6 but turned around and beat them 8-3 on Sunday in the semifinals. Field was Texas Nationals, Kings CO, Mad Dog West Elite, True Illinois Premier, ADVNC, and some team called Mountain West All-Stars that made it to the championship game after beating Mad Dog West Elite in the semifinals.
Did any of these teams play back east this fall?
I'm sure most of them will be at Sandstorm in Palm Springs in January? Any local MD/DC teams going out to Sandstorm?
All of these teams played back East in one or more events— Naptown, NAL, NLF, etc. ADVNC not very good. Mad Dog West pretty good but not up there w the top east teams like Venom, Madlax, Hawks, etc. (Madlax haters are about to chirp, but Madlax has beaten MDWE all 4-5x they’ve played them in Vail, NAL, etc.). Kings are exceptional at 2027, but haven’t been on the 2028 scene back East as far as I know. Tx Nationals is a super team of kids from 3-4 clubs (Sentry, 3D TX, Iron Horse) who can’t compete as those, but come like a WCS team and are legit.
Definitely a ton of talent coming from out west, but they need to create super teams from like 10 states to compete with the best team from a town in the East like Annapolis, Garden City, Towson, Bethesda, etc.
Incorrect about TX Nationals.
Garden City?
Yeah, there’s more talent on the town of Garden City than all of TX
Facts. In addition, all the Garden City kids are on age.
While we don’t know who is on age or holdbacks— we do know this. Small towns in Long Island, Baltimore, and DC put forth teams, sometimes multiple teams, that compete with these west coast and national super teams. Garden City, Manhasset, Bethesda, Towson, Annapolis, etc. Towns with 30k people beating these super teams from 25 states west of the Mississippi. It’s wvident by the Nationals All Star events with the older groups— DMV (northwest suburbs of DC), Maryland (Baltimore kids), Nassau County teams dominate that event. I think DMV won 2 of the 3 divisions last 2 years, lost in the final of the other. The Pacific Northwest and Pacific Southwest teams get rolled.
No question more and more talent coming from out west as the game grows. But the top high school teams in CA and TX can’t compete with those from back East. Further anecdotal evidence of this statement— Mater Dei HS (the top team in Ca last year) came back East for Spring Break last spring and played a few middle to bottom level teams in the MIAA. They get rolled (Archbishop Spalding 9-2 and MSJ who finished 10th of 11 in their conference).
I know we’ve digressed from TX Nationals and other 2028 teams competing at 2028. Point is, outside of these super teams (not sure if TXN qualifies as super team of not), local west coast / Texas teams are simply NOT competitive with East Coast teams unless they band together. That’s Ok. If somehow the 2-3 teams from Bethesda rolled up one super team— they would stomp TXN, WCS, JM3, or any of these nationals teams from out west. Same goes for Annapolis, Garden City, etc
Water Polo or Football? CA and TX wouldn’t lose to an East Coast dream team either.
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