Fair assessment on the predictions. I will say it's a good baseline for each team. I noticed that most of the teams were missing key pieces and may not have been playing their best ball. Interested in seeing how they will adjust going forward now that most of the elite teams have seen each other, Out of curiosity (because of the discussion here). I did make it a point to see both A and B preds teams.
My assessment on preds (Not ment to bash the preds but an observstion)
Preds seemed to really struggle. They are in for a ride.
Technically they are a step behind, even for fall ball, All the teams I watched struggled with this but not as much. Lots for dropped passes. Ground balls where an issue. Off ball movement was non existent. It's apparent the boys handn't played together.
The difference between the A and B teams are minimal.
The A team has one or two players that have skills to keep up however, it's a team sport.
If none of the teams they where playing were firing on full cylinders and had this much trouble, I can't imagine what the season will be like.
I hope if they decided to play in the elite division they coaches due their due diligence and develop a plan to handle the skill level, speed, and talent found in the HOCO elite level.
I watched most of a game of Preds A and maybe a quarter of Preds B.
I have to respectfully disagree. Preds B appears to be a sizeable distance behind A. They were totally exposed against BLC... a AA HOCO team that has lost most of their top talent. Frankly, Preds B might struggle in AAA this year.
Interesting that after a full play day with 6 elite HoCo teams (yes, like it or not, Preds will be there in Elite), the only conversation is on the Preds. Nothing at all on the epic match between Hawks and Next level. Or FCA's improvement. Or True Cheseapke's new look (True-haters are not going to be happy this year watching the TC 2029's.) Or Crabs obvious step back/struggles. The fixation on Preds might have to do with the fact they have the only non-parent coach (who is highly respected in the lacrosse community), the thought that they develop their kids better than anyone else in Baltimore outside of FCA (and probably on par with FCA), and that they are the only Baltimore team able to pull together two teams which speaks to them doing something right in the eyes of parents (i.e. developing their boys). Anyone who has watched them can see they obviously took a large step forward from last year. Does that mean they will compete with the top tier of elite? No. But I don't think anyone was expecting that. Not many teams nationally can compete with those guys. And Baltimore probably doesn't have the boys to support two truly elite teams at this 2029 level. FCA is the one Baltimore elite team at this age group.
There is a clear division between True Ches, Hawks, NL, FCA - and then everyone else (will be interesting to see where ML falls on the dividing line this year.) Crabs has 6th place in elite locked down - but they dont look like they will be competitive against the top dogs - they clearly have taken a step back, especially in their midfield. Will be interesting to see if Team MD, 91MD, True Baltimore (or anyone else) is competitive versus Preds.
But please keep talking Preds instead of all the other awesome things we saw yesterday. It was a great tourney and a great day. Great seeing so many friendly faces and so many talented kids.
