Hey guys... I know it took me a bit longer to get the final roster "finalized," but I was planning a rather extensive trip across the pacific, and I'm not really good with planning those sort of logistics so it took me a while to get it all squared away.
Anyways! here goes...
--------------------
Summary:
--------------------
So after last season, we had some holes at several positions that needed to be filled. Some were easier than others to fill. Goaltending was remarkably deeper than I initially anticipated, and strikingly, there actually wasn't need for me to add
Antoine Strauss to the squad at all (as I had previously thought would be necessary).
--------------------
Goalies:
--------------------
Daryl Marshall will fill in very nicely along with
John Field in net.
Dan Varner and
Pascal Hunt were considered for the 3rd slot. I decided to go with the former largely because
Cataclysm already has a few guys on the national teams, and I thought it'd be cool for [handball_team=16083] to have a guy that got the nod. (Yes that was really how close it was - the two are remarkably similar in most every other differentiating way).
Antoine Strauss will get the call next season. He doesn't really need to be on the team this year (there are other options), and I really make a point about not adding my own players unless they are going to be starters, or they're being added in a developmental capacity. Plus, it'll be nice to have a goalie for my saturday friendlies.
--------------------
Backs:
--------------------
We didn't need a ton of help at Back. Our defensive backs were still very deep from last season (many of which will be very good players in the future for the older national teams). But I ended up adding
Joseph Vaughn for more offensive depth at Back. He'll slot in as the 3rd starter alongside
Nolan McQueen and
Robert Mercado .
Ronald McNamara will serve as the 1st substitute, but given his less specialized stats, he won't be leaned on heavily outside of emergencies.
Charles Younger will remain in a developmental role this season (always called up for the extra experience, but not really playing many games).
Devon Weaver is only on the team this season to protect him when [handball_team=15886] eventually folds.
On the defensive side,
Tyrone Cambridge and
Gene Trimble will almost always start, while
Chad Pinson and
Gregory Paige will somewhat split time in order to maintain some semblance of team energy.
Scott Serna rounds out the defensive backs in the developmental role. He'll be a very good starter next season as an 18 year old.
--------------------
Wings:
--------------------
We only had 3 wings on the roster at the start of this season, so we needed to make a couple additions there.
Unfortunately, we're not incredibly deep in areas of need at the position.
Crispin Beeman (the 2nd best USA-born 17 year old) would almost certainly have gotten the call this season for defensive left wing if not for the fact that
Phillip Marvin more than adequately fills that exact position. So the search for more defensive support instead went to
Fred Randle . He'll slot in on the right side and should do well there. If we're in dire need,
Michael Horne is an option, but he's really not quite ready this year and will likely join the team next season to fill the void left when
Fred Randle departs.
On offensive wing, we'll likely be running with
Justin Mckenzie and
David Allen as starters. I added
Ira Hopkins essentially for depth... plus it won't hurt to get him some experience, as he'll likely play next season once
Justin Mckenzie departs.
Other than
Michael Horne and
Crispin Beeman , I also looked at and considered
Sanford Bickham as an option, but his training is really all over the place, and he doesn't really specialize in offense or defense, so he was sort of hard to justify adding (I'd probably never end up using him, so it'd be largely a wasted addition).
--------------------
Pivots:
--------------------
Everett Benitez serves absolutely no purpose. On this national team or his home team in league play. He is quite literally redundant in both, stuck behind the much superior
Dexter Stapleton . I'm actually quite confused why both were trained as defensive pivots.
Anyways...
Everett Benitez is also only on the team due to the eminent demise of [handball_team=15886]. He likely won't ever be called up and probably won't see a lick of gametime as long as
Dexter Stapleton is healthy.
Offensive pivot is quite possibly our weakest position on the team (another reason
Everett Benitez 's training is particularly frustrating).
Hugo Wilhelm will be the starter in the role as
Ronnie Lindsey isn't quite ready yet for full duty.
--------------------
Developmental:
--------------------
In addition to the other developmental players I mentioned above (
Charles Younger ,
Scott Serna , and
Ronnie Lindsey )
Leon Barnes was added late last season as he was one of the highest quality 15 year olds at the time. His team has good facilities, so he'll likely be a very good player in the future. It appears as though so far he's being trained as a balanced back, though my preference for him would be that he were more specialized (one way or the other). He'd be more likely to become a staple of the national teams that way (just a thought in case
zomg is reading this...).
The list of 17 year olds that I'm watching includes the following players:
Dominick Cervantes (offensive wing),
Fernando Vogel (offensive back),
Travis Darnell (non-specialized back),
Michael Horne (defensive wing),
Vic McElroy (offensive wing),
Dom Moon (offensive back), and
Hans Carr (offensive pivot).
The list of 16 year olds I'm follwing includes:
Mitchell Moody (offensive back),
Burt Whitney (non-specialized pivot),
Angel Calloway (defensive wing),
Jason Beach (defensive back),
Reuben Cohen (offensive wing),
Thomas Bacon (defensive wing), and
Canu Arnett (offensive wing).
Random tidbits:
-
Travis Darnell would almost assuredly be added to a developmental slot (due to his very high qualities), but I need him to pick a side of the court. He could be a very good player on the national teams, but will likely fall short of his potential as long as he's expending so much training on both shot and block. I added
Leon Barnes last season before I realized that he was being trained in a non-specialized fashion. We don't really need two of those guys at the same position.
- There are a honestly LOT of very good wing prospects that are 16-17 years old. The above list of 14 players represents the highest OR 16-17 year olds that aren't currently on the Youth National Team. 7/14 are wings.
- Scary fact: none of those 14 players are goalies.
Ώρα:
Aποσύνδεση
Θέμα: US Under 19 Team
