Who's No. 1 (in 2008)??
I read with interest that post about TR South being 15-0 so far in legion ball. Who would currently rate as pre-season No. 1 in 2008??
And would anyone care to post a 2008 Preseason Top 10???
And would anyone care to post a 2008 Preseason Top 10???
posted by Tony Graham at 1:08 PM
37 Comments:
Its extremely tough to post a preseason top 10, alot can happen between now and the beginning of April. Legion ball is always tough, because the level of play and intensity isnt as high as it would be in a regular season game.
I'll give it a crack
1) Colts Neck-- Gotta put them there till they geat beat
2) TRS-- If their legion team is any indication of what this upcoming spring will be like, this team will be tough to beat. They return 18 pitching victories, plus picked up a huge transfer in Drew Holt.
3) TRN-- They lost Geran to graduation, however they still have a extremely tough pitching staff and lineup.
4) CBA- The lost of Slate and the Laufer twins will hurt, however the Colts dont rebuild... they reload
Here comes the tough decision, I would think its a tossup between Ocean, Wall, Toms River East and Jackson.
CBA will be number one.
They will reload! And they are right now...
Re: CBA. The soph, Nick Falcone, that started the MCT final game is a nice pitcher. I was very impressed, and with Remy Cohen, etc. it's a nucleus of another solid staff
They should be right up there - as always.
I think the TRS pitching staff is going to be one of the best in the Shore Conference next season.
Holt, Bissey, Vivanoa, Gebler and Carbalo. This group maybe the best staff Toms River South has seen in many many years (Wheeler, Arre, and Frazier come to mind)
heard Remy Cohen pitching lights out this week in Georgia. my friends are down there. Lots of nj kids.
Cohen has lots of college scouts there looking and he has really stepped up his game.CBA will do well as always.
CBA should be #1-they will re-load. They have talented kids all over the place.
I would go with TRS as the # 2 team.
#3 Jackson has LOTS of pitching and some quality depth at many positions.
#4 Wall-See Jackson, same thing applies here
#5 CN the loss of Rubarsky and Hayes will hurt but they still have 2 good pitchers and some veterans
Tony,
Manalapan is returning many key players and has deeper quality pitching than most people expect. They may surprise people next spring. It'll be fun to see if they can fulfill their potential.
Drew Holt will make a big impact at TRS. He and Tony D from CN will be the aces in the Shore next spring Also, didn't see mention of Ocean Twp, but they will reload and be in the thick next year b/c of rich talent base and strong coaching in their program. My .02.
Plase fill me in on Carbalo. Also..is Holt, Steve's brother??
RE: Remy. Am looking forward to watching him pitch in 2008...CBA staff will be young but talented I would think...
Not a bad top five there....what about TR East? Loaded with pitching...yes?
Manalapan (Turano, etc.) had some nice young talent this year..Ocean sort of a mystery at the moment...
Yes, Drew Holt is the younger brother of Steve "Perfect Game" Holt. He pitched a little his freshman year for TRS, then spent his soph and juniors years in TN. Drew is probably a little smaller than Steve was in highschool. Seen Drew pitch several legion games, the kid has a NASTY NASTY curveball, solid changeup and spots his fastball really well. He will certainly be the ace of this very experienced TRS pitching staff. I also believe their is a younger Holt (maybe a freshman or soph) on the team as well.
TRE should have a good 1-2 punch with Ferano and Fitzsimmons(patrick) I forget the last name. They also had several talented JV teams the past few years. I think the biggest question mark this year will be the offense. I dont know if TRE will be able to score enough runs in compete with the big guns in the A-South next year
I edited out the very last part of this post.
While an opinion on a player is perfectly acceptable here, I found one last remark to be a little objectionable - in my opinion.
Anonymous said...
Carballo is a junior that throws pretty hard will help, they also have a soph lefty McGee that is going to be very good. Yes Drew Holt is the brother of Steve.
Tony, help us out in the spring, DON'T compare Gebler to Todd Frazier, he will Never be as good as Todd.
As for the opinion of the poster..
Well, there will probably be only one Todd.
But I still feel Gebler has a chance to be special..aftr all..he has two more years left.
Re: TR East. Seems to me I heard the under class teams did very well in 2007.
Also, in talking with JM Gold for the the story which ran today, I believe he told me TR North rising talent is excellent.
By the way..how do TR N folks feel about JM probably going to work for Jackson Memorial? Just curious.
RE: TRN
I would think they deserve to be in the Top 5 in the preseason. They bring back a solid core of kids back, they have also had solid freshman squads the past several years. Coaching has always been questioned there, so we shall see how much longer Teddy can hang in there
I think CBA and Manalapan Legion teams are playing today at Malapan rec center.
If not repeated here because i screwup up copying from another post,please forgive me, never forget Kyle Norman and Eric Hinkle without them who knows. Congrat Sherry and JT on Kyles choice of college. We just go news Eric qualified for D1 and Brooklyn here he comes.
Legion Ball is a horse of a different color. Players in and out to show their ability, if not already prepicked in the coaches minds. Not an indication of the Spring.
Eric had alot of indecisions 0-0 in the 7th/8th, a #2 pitcher comes in as a relief and OT scores 1-0. So never look at SAT facts at face value.
I am sure we are all happy families with alot of work ahead of us with our boys or should I say their hard work, we can finally sleep in. Good bye Tony, must admit you are a witty, clever writer,our opinions not so sure, and I can see why you are still writing. Please post..Thank you
STATS, not SATS, I need glasses and a spelling course. Tony still think about writing a column of all different subjects, I would enjoy reading your knowledge about life..no sports, baseballed out. Have a nice summer,maybe catch up next year, getting Eric and the other three I own ready for school.
TELL YOUR EDITORS WE WANT A COLUMN IN APP TALKIG ABOUT YOUR YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN LIFE. ETC ADVICE FOR THE YOUNG PLAYERS AND LAUGHS FOR US OLDER NOT SO PLAYERS.
i was surprised when looking at Marlboro Hs. They have three returning outfielders, three returning infielders, and three senior pitchers including two jr pitchers who all have varsity experience. They shouldnt break the top five but look for them to make a splash in 2008. Oh yea and one of the two returning jr pitchers, Sam Lubin, threw a perfect game this summer in legion.
hey tony,
the monmouth regional american legion team is 13-0 right now with a game tonight against middletown north
there is some impressive winsin there including a 2-1 win over CBA on CBAs home field and we have wins over Colts Neck, Ocean, Manalapan, Howell all pretty respectable teams. especially CN and Ocean
Re: Marlboro. They have had some decent teams over the years....won an MCT..played in at least one SCT final that I recall (I think)
Re: Monmouth Reg. Care to offer up some names to Blog Country of who is performing well??
for MRHS the 5 returning letter winners are doing pretty well in CJ Pratt and Tom Dayback in the outfield
Kyle Fagan pitching and 1st base
Matt Slowinsky catching and Matt DenBleyker has been DHing mostly
all these guys have been doing well offensively and Fagan is 5-0 on the mound
JV guys coming up have been proving really important Brian Schopka and Frank Martino have been pitching real well as the other 2 starters, and 3rd basemen Dennis Reynolds is having a great season both offensively and defensively making some great plays
Tony - Mon. Regional has a pither's mound that is way too high. It has to be changed. It is not even close to being the regulation height. They also have bull pen mound that is high. Visitors have a flat mound to practice on pre-game. What can be done to have a level playing field?
Re: pitchers mound. Rent a bulldozer???
who cares about a pitchers mound...ya MRHS is high but that was brought down from 2 years ago
what about st rose... you guys may say they will be nothing because they are losign ranuado but he didnt do much offensively and he only won 5 games as a pitcher and lost 2 out of the 5 games they did lose... they are returning there WHOLE starting defense except for cathcer.. dont count them out they will still have a great staff this year with cannon smith and vinci all throwing in the mid 80's
Re: St. Rose. They start the year with like a zillion division wins in a row.
Overall.. experienced pitching and return of Bresnahan and several other key players should make them formidable...
Sorry, the topic of the subject was "who's number 1" to start the 2008 season. St Rose is not in the same caliber of team such as Toms River South, Colts Neck, CBA, Jackson, Wall, Ocean Twp
I'm not saying St Rose cant beat them, The Purple Roses have certainly proven they can over the years, however they wouldnt be able to compete on the same level day in and day out as those teams mentioned above. St Rose has always been given a luxuary of playing teams such as Pt Beach, Henry Hudson, Shore Regional, Keyport etc Thus, it seems as though St Rose always has their "ace" ready to throw against the tougher non conference competition
I have all the respect in the world for St. Rose ....but I don't think St. Rose will be preseason No. 1. That's a safe bet...
There is some truth to what you say about St. Rose always having their Ace for tougher out of conference competition. But don't forget that they didn't pitch their ace against Ocean and had them to the seventh before Ocean mounted a comeback. They didn't pitch their ace in their 2nd game against Manasquan and beat them 13-3. All of their pitchers outside of their ace are back along with everyone else. However they should not be pre-season # 1. I would give that to Colts Neck, CBA or one of the Toms River squads. Wall or Ocean could also be tough to beat. Then I would would put St. Rose
Heard TRS beat Colts Neck today 8-1 in state legion game today.
Monmouth got eliminated from the district 2 legion tournament today
they went 1-2 in the tournament
they lost to a very good team from Hunterdon County
than on sunday they beat Emerson 11-8
they were down 8-1 going into the 7th inning (9 innings in state play) and scored 3 in the 7th and 7 in the 8th to take the win
they got eliminated by muskecatgon or something like that tonight 9-7
Toms River South 2-1 in State Legion so far
Lost to a very good West Deptford team 10-4 ater giving up 6 in first
Beat Colts 8-1
Beat Freehold Boro 10-5
They play west windsor plainsboro today and winner plays West Deptford for runner up spot to advance to state finals.
Wall
Brandon Miles, Mark Pellecchia: basically enough said the defence behind these two will be near top-notch and timely hitting will prove for a great season.
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