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2019 Favorites

Johnston and Western Dubuque will be tough to beat. Ive got a top 15 list Ill post later, but i rely heavily on quik stats, dont have any inside info and I know Central Iowa teams better than other parts of the state.
 
1. Johnston
2. Dub West
3. Dav Central
4. SEP
5.Sioix City East
6. Dowling
7. Centennial
8. Urbandale
9. North Scott
10. CR washington
11. cr jefferson
12. IC City
13. Prairie
14. IC West 14
15. Valley

1-2 is really a coin toss. western returns dang near everybody while johnston returns alot of hitting along with a few pitchers.

I freely admit that i know nothing about anyone from any team that was not on varsity last year,unless I stumbled onto them on pbr iowa or perfect game. one wxception being waukee which ive heard has a pretty strong class of 2020s and 2021s
 
I like sioux city east. They return two top hitters and good pitching depth. would like to see a d1 arm or bat that can carry them to state.
 
I think 1A is pretty well already decided. Newman Catholic has a lot returning from clearly the best 1A team in the state past season and I expect much of the same this season
 
1A
(Favorite) Newman Catholic- Lost a lot of seniors from last year's state championship team but always reload well and are probably the favorites to win again

Alburnett- Return a majority of their team that finished 34-7 last year and one game away from state including 6/7 of their top pitchers

Don Bosco- Also return a lot of their lineup from last years state qualifying team and are always a good team

Martensdale St. Mary's- Lose top 2 hitters and top 3 pitchers but have some good young talent and usually find a way to make it to state

(Darkhorse) Calamus Wheatland- Return everyone from a team that went 20-14 and now that Lisbon lost a lot to graduation and North Linn moves up a class, they have a bit of an easier time in conference and in districts

2A
(Favorite) Centerville- Lose some talented seniors from last years state championship team but have talented sophomores and juniors to fill in those spots and make another run for state

Wilton- Return just about everyone from a state semifinal team last year including their top 5 pitchers which is arguably is the best rotation in class 2A, if they can improve their hitting they will be very dangerous come postseason

West Sioux- Return a bulk of their lineup from last year and have quality players that have experience playing in the state tournament

Beckman Catholic- Lost some extremely talented seniors from last year's team in Vaske, Mcdermott and Bennett but they are well coached and playing up a class helps them come postseason time not to mention their rich baseball history

(Darkhorse) Denver- Lose top pitcher Zach Miller who essentially carried them to the state tournament the last 3 years with his clutch pitching but with some good young players coming back that have experience, they can be very scary in the postseason

3A
(Favorite) Assumption- Another team that loses a lot to graduation but return 4/5 of their top pitchers and are looking to add another state championship to their already state leading collection. They do lose their head coach though but I don't think it'll be much of a issue

CR Xavier- Have some really good starters returning and playing in the MVC helps get them ready for postseason, hopefully they separate them from Assumption come district time

Harlan- Return top 2 pitchers in Sears and Bruck and regularly find a way to state, will have some extra motivation to win a championship this year after getting blown out the last 2 years by Assumption

Central DeWitt- Only lose 2 seniors from a team that went 29-12 and one win away from state only losing to the eventual champion, return everyone from their pitching staff as well

(Darkhorse) Sergeant Bluff Luton- Return top 4 hitters(all of which were sophomores) and top 4 pitchers, playing in 4A conference helps too

4A
(Favorite) Epworth- Return almost their entire state semifinal team including maybe the best hitter in the state Calvin Harris and Iowa commit Sam Goodman, the move to the MVC for conference might be an issue but the experience and talent on the team makes them very dangerous

Johnston- Have some good hitting coming back and will try to avenge their disappointing state appearance last year after losing to the 8 seed CR Washington, well coached and always a threat

Urbandale- Lose top 4 hitters and top 3 pitchers but have some quality juniors stepping in after winning the state championship last year

Dav Central- Return the bulk of their hitting and pitching from last years team and have some talented players moving up from the JV team

(Darkhorse) SC East- Have a majority of their pitching and hitting back and are looking to make it back to the state tournament after a couple of years, the biggest issue is they might get paired with Des Moines teams again which would make their road to state very challenging
 
I think 4a is pretty much a two team race between Johnston and Epworth. Johnston returns a bunch of top hitters and a few arms. Epworth has amazing talent with three d1 players, all who pitch. Their 2021 3b is good as well. Dowling has a few D1 guys with quite a few hitters returning and I agree Dav Central returns a ton of talent. Waukee, CR Prairie and Urbandale will be in the mix as well
 
harlan should have a good team again this year. they have 2 of their better pitchers back. lost some of the top hitters, got to replace those. but what i have read and from last year,s success, they should be one of the better teams in 3a
 
And the logic is? I don’t see the correlation between conference play and post season play. It’s one thing if the conference doesn’t want a smaller school in it, but to say you have to play up postseason because you challenged yourself regular season is ludicrous.
 
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And the logic is? I don’t see the correlation between conference play and post season play. It’s one thing if the conference doesn’t want a smaller school in it, but to say you have to play up postseason because you challenged yourself regular season is ludicrous.
Agreed. The original post is a completely ridiculous idea. St. Albert used to be in a "small school conference", went to state. St. Albert joined a "larger school conference", went to state.
 
So a 4a team that plays in a 3A conference (Indianola) gets to play down come tournament time?

What about a 1A team that plays 10 games in conference against 1A schools, but 20 out of conference games against 2A and 3A schools? Are they good to stay down, or do they need to move up?

The state uses BEDs numbers for a reason...mainly because your opinion is stupid.
 
So a 4a team that plays in a 3A conference (Indianola) gets to play down come tournament time?

What about a 1A team that plays 10 games in conference against 1A schools, but 20 out of conference games against 2A and 3A schools? Are they good to stay down, or do they need to move up?

The state uses BEDs numbers for a reason...mainly because your opinion is stupid.

Umm.... okay?
 
I don't agree with the "stupid" part, but I agreed with you till that point.

State should be based on the rules set forth by the state (based on BEDs) - we could probably debate all day long about the private school place, but rules of the state should apply.

The conference you play in, on the other hand, is something that the school has a little more control over - they can choose to be in a challenging conference, and decrease their odds of winning a conference title but increase the odds of post season success, OR choose an easier conference that provides a greater opportunity to win a conference championship but may not prepare them for the postseason as well.

Admittedly, I don't know too much about many of the conferences, however, in the ones I am familiar with, they do not dictate who the teams play other than they have to at least play the conference teams X number of times.
 
Will they win state, probably not, but being from the Wapsie Valley Community District (1A) I am excited to see if they can take the next step in baseball this year. They have a very young nucleus and made a run last year, getting beat out by North Linn to make it to state. Need a dominating pitcher to emerge, but some upside there.
 
That makes no sense. Schedule whoever you want that you think helps your team get better. Teams from different classes can compete against each other well, especially in baseball where there is little physical contact and players spend a majority of the game either just standing or sitting and watching.
 
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Does the state use beds numbers to place schools in a classification? Are those classifications then used to fill conferences?

If your enrollment puts you in a particular class, you should play in that class. If you feel you can compete with the next class above, then voluntarily move up (just like you voluntarily play in a larger school conference).

The state uses BEDS to put teams in a Class. The schools decide what conference they play in. Generally, they try to play against like sized school. There are exceptions, such as if there are no like sized schools in your area or if you grow (or drop) into another class.

When we were in the Heart of Iowa, it would be tough to call it a 2A or 3A conference, since the split was almost 50/50, and most of the 3A schools had been 2A schools and had barely moved into 3A classification.

North Linn is something like the 2nd or 3rd smallest 2A school playing 1A schools. Should they move out of their conference for 2 years then move back when they drop back to 1A? Colfax-Mingo is the smallest 2A school and will go back to 1A in a year or two. They play in a mainly 1A conference, should they move back to the HOIC for that year or two?

Schools will generally move up conferences if they are growing, know they will continue to grow and are outgrowing their competition (Gilbert next year, for example).
 
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Colfax Mingo has a BEDs number of 180 in 2A. Hinton has BEDs number of 163 and seem to be the smallest 2A school. North Linn sits at 166 from the IAHSAA website. All play in predominantly 1A conferences. If you move every time you change classes it would be ridiculous.
 
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