Monday, September 12, 2022

Scheduling, More Than Meets the Eye

"You'd be killing yourself." 

Ambitious teams want to go deep in the postseason. They challenge themselves with top competition which invariably includes home-and-home series against elite teams.

The powerhouse clubs, Barnstable, Westborough, Newton North, Winchester, Hopkinton, Melrose, and others never duck the competition.  

With the new power rankings system, playing a weak schedule hurts in multiple ways. Teams get less competitive experience. Lower quality wins mean earlier playoff matches against strong teams on the road. Some teams will miss the playoffs with sub .500 records and poor quality wins.

The Middlesex League offers vastly improved competition, which helps the teams compete against non-league and post-season teams. Melrose has an exceptional non-league schedule this year - Newton North, Westborough, Frontier, and Peabody. 

"Iron sharpens iron." 

It's still too early for Power Rankings. I'm guessing they'll be out toward the end of next week. 


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