1. Palma: Knocked out of the playoffs for the fifth straight year by a WCAL team.
2. Monte Vista: Fell in the semifinals to reigning Open Division champion Sacred Heart Prep.
3. San Benito: Ousted in the Open Division I semifinals by Bellarmine
4. Salinas: Season ended in the first round of the Open Division I playoffs
5. Pacific Grove: Headed to the CCS finals for the second time in three years.
6. North Salinas: Had its seven game winning streak snapped in the DIV semifinals.
7. Carmel: Three game winning streak snapped in Division V semifinals.
8. Soledad: Season ended in the first round of the Division IV playoffs.
9. Alvarez: Season ended in the first round of the Open Division I playoffs.
10. Alisal: Three game improvement was not enough to make the postseason.
On the bubble: Seaside, King City, Gonzales, North County.
John Devine has been writing about high school sports in Monterey County since, well, practically since he was an athlete at King City in the days just after leather helmets. In PrepNation, John has even more in-depth analysis of the latest results and news he's brought to you in The Herald and in his weekly videos.
Follow Me
The Monterey County Herald reserves the right to edit posts and delete any comments that violate the Terms of Service & Privacy Agreement.
10 comments:
Palma had its chances in this one.
John...Your picks for Top 10 seem to be based primarily on who is going or has gone the farthest in the play-offs. Not really anything to do with the total season. So PG gets clobbered by Carmel...apart from the score, Carmel had 423 yards of offense and PG 179... and ends up ranked higher than Carmel? PG gets Capuchino and Scotts Valley (who Carmel beat by eight) in the play-offs, while Carmel has to take on TKA and Half Moon Bay. I dare say that PG had the much easier side of the bracket. No way PG had a better team than Carmel this year. And no way they should be ranked higher than Carmel in your Final Season Rankings. At least that is my opinion.
Yeah and Soledad handled Carmel. Sooooooooo
Carmel vs Soledad + PG. Carmel scored 37 points against them and gave up 23
Soledad vs Carmel + PG. Soledad scored 15 points against them and gave up 24
PG vs Carmel + Soledad. PG Scored 35 points against them and gave up 40
Or how about each school versus MTAL opponents this year?
Carmel scored 280 points against the other MTAL teams and gave up 128 for a delta of 152 points.
PG scored 202 points against other MTAL teams and gave up 114 for a delta of 88 points.
Soledad scored 155 points and gave up 73 for a delta of 82 points.
So I got it Carmel, then PG then Soledad. He says with tongue in cheek.
Clearly they were tri-champs and nobody can take that away from any of the three teams. Soledad did handle Carmel. Carmel did handle PG. And PG handled Soledad.
But if you are going to take the screen name Carmelkyd, you better be ready to stand up for your team.
Agreed. Can't take away the championship from any of the 3. And you can look at comparing the three teams at all different angles. Carmel is an offensive power house who didn't really need a defense, Soledad was the number one defense in the county and didn't have an explosive offense, and PG was more balanced than the other two teams. Each team also helped each other. We both know P.G. probably helped Soledad re-focus after their game. Soledad woke up the Carmel offense after keeping them out of the end zone for the first time in forever. And P.G. wouldn't being playing this week if they didn't get out played by Carmel in the Shoe game. Ranking and comparing the three teams is very hard to do. They should probably be all raked at 5 just like they all were tri-champs.
Tired of hearing PG this...Carmel that.go play in the Gablian Division.And see where end up at end of the season.
Hey we'd be near the middle to bottom. Unless we had a MVC like season...and they don't come along often for public schools.
Fact of the matter is that neither of us in these posts said anything about Carmel or PG (or Soledad) being better than the Gabilan Division teams that Devine had on his list. We were "arguing" about fifth place.
So lighten up Carmel and PG hater. Two choices if you are tired of hearing about these schools. Either don't bother to read the Comments or begin posting about other schools and take the conversation in a different direction.
No statistical evidence, but one inference you can make from this past season and previous ones is that the MTAL is becoming a much more competitive league for football which is a plus when considering post season competition. The games seem to be tighter for middle of the pack teams, and with Soledad earning a share of it's first league title, it's a sign of resurgence for south county schools since the building of high schools in Soledad and Greenfield.
Next season, in my opinion, should be another tight 3 way title race for Soledad, Carmel and Pacific Grove. Carmel seems to be returning key starters and an effective system. Pacific Grove looks to return their same system, but graduating a lot of key players. However, PG prevails someway or another. While PG and Carmel are consistently league title and CCS playoff contenders, Soledad taking another step forward can be expected. Soledad will return the majority of their starters and elevating members of another undefeated JV team. The MTAL should be an interesting league again next year.
Interesting didnt know Soledad had the number one defense in the county. All rankings are just opinions the only problem with JDs is that he never comes on here and explains his thinking. His one liners on the post dont really explain why he has certain teams ahead of others. I think you could rank any of the MTAL teams in any order and have a reason for doing so. The MTAL is becoming a more competitive league since the middle of the pack teams are improving and the two top dogs didnt have dominate teams. I would say Carmel would be heavy favorites going into next year with what they return.
Why would PG or Carmel want to leave the MTAL?? So they can get thrown into the death sentence of the Gab like Seaside? Carmel and PG would easily compete for a pacific division title every year. Maybe compete to crack the top 3 in the Gab in certain years but consistently be in the middle of the pack. If Carmel went over to the MBL it would just be another loss for teams like seaside alisal north county etc. Those schools wouldnt want to get dominated by Carmel.
If we are going to talk about next year already...and I am more than happy to do so...I see troubles for PG. Doesn't look like they have much help coming up from JV and several key players from this years varsity team graduate. My preseason pick for the Breakers is third. Carmel loses the better part of their offensive line. Let's see what that does to their running game. Carmel at number two. Soledad gets my nod for league champion. That JV team was strong particularly at quarterback. Big school and I'd expect after this year's success you will see more kids than ever wanting to play football. I think, given the school's size, you could see Soledad taking home the league crown a number of years in a row.
Post a Comment