I liked the way Corey ranked the teams in the spring so I will try to do something similar. One flight per week before the season starts. Of course I don’t know and haven’t played everyone so will likely be horribly off on some predictions again….
Flight A
Teams to beat:
Garland/ Noel - With the addition of Saqueton, Akhtar and Baker these guys have more than made up for their loss of Hawkins & Xu AND they proved me wrong in the play-offs so I think they are the smart pick right now.
Las Colinas - second on tie-breakers with the addition of James and anticipated Wescoup sign-up this is a good roster
Lakes – Strong dubs, and Kirkpatrick is a solid singles guy. They have lost some depth to the Weatherby team which may be an issue in the fall.
Best of the rest:
Village – tough team to beat every week!
Oak Creek – Don Smith knows what he is doing so these guys are a tough out every week even if they don’t have any superstars
High Point – Carlquist takes over as captain. Some strong players even though they struggled at times in the Spring. Are they motivated to go out and win every week? We will see.
Canyon Creek – talent from the spring split between 2 teams with numerous 4.0s playing up. Don’t expect a repeat of the strong debut
Bottom-dwellers:
LBH – nice guys playing for fun. Pretty much the same roster that struggled in the Spring
Hackberry – If they can get 8 guys to all their away matches they will be tough but are notorious for a lack of commitment and also lost their best player (Andrew Pretty); I'm sure these guys will take issue with this prediction so hopefully it will motivate them to have a good fall. There are some solid players on the roster.
SpringPark – Struggled in the Spring – not sure that the one big addition can jump them to the next level.
The Lakes should win this flight if they want; their top group would beat most 5.0 teams.
ReplyDeletethe rest of the teams appear to be playing for 2nd place.
Agree with Noel being the favorite in that flight. But no way in hell are they better off with the new additions vs. the loss of Xu and Hawkins.
ReplyDeleteLakes has Vu Lee back as he is possibly the best 4.5 singles player period! How quickly everyone forgot how good he was. Played 5.0 and got hurt so got bumped down. Gives Lakes the one singles win they need to beat everyone!
ReplyDeleteI agree about Xu and Hawlins being huge losses to Noel. He definitely picked up some good players but none of those three are in the same league as Xu. Hawkins is great but Xu is a bigger loss than Hawkins. Xu was a near lock at singles.
ReplyDeleteReplacing those guys is certainly going to be very difficult. We will do our best.
ReplyDeleteVu Lee and Kirkpatrick are going to be tough to beat. The Lakes can now move Wagner back to doubles and easily win this flight and the playoffs. Noel will be a good test but I'm sure Coredawg will protect his players for the Spring. Xu and Hawkins were huge losses and he can't afford to lose anyone else just for a silly bid to the QT.
ReplyDeleteThe Lakes are full of pride and will try and win the meaningless Fall season.
is the Baker on the Noel team the same Baker that played in the Combo on Somabut's team?
ReplyDeleteHe only answers to Mr. Baker, or The Scott Baker. Yes it's the one from combo.
ReplyDelete"The" Scott Baker? Is this Mr. Baker answering? I watched a little of the Match that Sunday, I think it started at 3:00 then later saw that they had won all their matches that weekend. Not sure which one he was but those guys looked like they could play. Actually both teams did, they looked very good.
ReplyDelete