Boys basketball rankings
1. Keyser
2. Southern Garrett
3. Allegany
4. Bishop Walsh
5. Hamsphire
6. Fort Hill
7. Northern Garrett
8. Mountain Ridge
9. Frankfort
It's been a great season and while there are still three teams alive in Maryland and West Virginia playoffs, PhDispatch.com already is thinking of its pre-season polls next November.
Which teams do you think will be the strongest during the 2011-12 season?
Games covered by Dispatch staff this season (through March 5)
Boys Girls
9 BW 2
9 SG 4
8 Keyser 3
1 Hampshire 3
4 Allegany 6
4 Fort Hill 6
8 NG 11
6 Mtn Ridge 5
1 Frankfort 4
PhDispatch.com has watched AMAC teams a total of 94 times through March 5 - 50 boys games and 44 girls games. This week, there will be at least three more games covered. Can any other area media outlet say they've covered local high school basketball teams nearly 100 times?
Keep in mind, that doesn't include middle school basketball or high school wrestling.
Coverage has included every team at least once and 16 of the 18 teams at least twice. In addition, PhDispatch.com has traveled to all nine AMAC gymnasiums at least three times each.
I want to keep this going into the spring sports season and beyond. If you're interested in learning how you can help to keep the Dispatch, send an email or call 301-264-3147.
As always, thank you for reading.
-- Kevin Spradlin, editor
Girls basketball rankings
1. Northern Garrett
2. Allegany
3. Frankfort
4. Southern Garrett
5. Mountain Ridge
6. Keyser
7. Hampshire
8. Fort Hill
9. Bishop Walsh
Final 2010-11 rankings
Weekly Power Rankings are mostly based on how teams are perceived to be playing now - largely determined by head-to-head matchups, but not exclusively so. Observation and trends also are taken into consideration.
And it's all for fun, so take it for what it's worth.
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The Potomac Highlands Dispatch
Phone: 301-264-3147
Email: [email protected]
P.O. Box 651
Mount Savage, MD 21545
Who knew? Huskies finish
No. 1 - and still aim for more
PhDispatch.com error put Northern Garrett at No. 8 to open season
By Kevin Spradlin
PhDispatch.com
FREDERICK, March 7 -- This is the first sports season that PhDispatch.com has been around.
So it was with a bit of trepidation that, in mid-December, the first PhDispatch.com Weekly Power Rankings were published. After all, there was little information to us at the time and, well, some of the first week or two was just guesswork.
We acknowledged in the second set of rankings, released on Christmas Day, how wrong we were after Northern Garrett toppled top-ranked Allegany.
To illustrate how much PhDispatch.com didn't know, we even misspelled Kaitlynn Fratz's last name - an "n" was inserted just before the "t."
There was much to learn, and the effort was made to do just that.
As the season progressed, so, too, did the Huskies. They went through highs - beating south county rival Southern Garrett twice, then for a third time in the playoffs - and lows, which included a humiliating loss in Cumberland to Allegany.
The rest of the regular season, the Campers held the top spot in the Weekly Power Rankings. They kept winning and, despite the Huskies doing just about everything right, Northern Garrett simply couldn't find a way to undo that loss to Allegany.
Then came March 3. And if you're at all interested, then you already know the Huskies won, 72-57. The story much of the year for Northern has been star point guard Fratz, who has an athletic scholarship to attend University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown.
If the news wasn't about Fratz, it was usually fellow senior Terra McKenzie. Against Allegany, however, it was Morgan Brosnihan - the third of the senior trio - who scored a career-high 23 points, including three 3-pointers.
Without Brosnihan's offensive output, or the effort by her, McKenzie and role players Sydney McFarland, Kiersten Butler and others on defense, Allegany would most certainly have won.
On Saturday against Smithsburg, the good news just kept getting better. Brosnihan was held scoreless. And yet, still the Huskies won.
The Huskies weren't supposed to beat Allegany. They did. They weren't supposed to beat Smithsburg. They did.
And they're the unofficial underdog against a very athletic team from 1A East Region champion Mardela that boasts a 25-1 record.
And yet, the Huskies are "all in." Some might have argued beating Allegany or Smithsburg - certainly both - would be considered unlikely. Maybe even improbable.
But for this year's Huskies, the improbable seems to be a recurring theme - almost like The Little Engine That Could. In that tale, a series of large engines are asked to pull a heavy load over a high mountain, and all refuse. A small engine is then asked, and succeeds by believing in itself and repeating, "I think I can, I think I can."
The Huskies surely believe in themselves. That much has been clear for some time. But it's easy to convince oneself; not as simple to persuade others to go along. But the communities of Accident and Grantsville are absolutely "all in," as is an extended fan base stretching throughout Garrett County and beyond.
Northern coach Steve Fratz asked, after his team's 52-47 win over Smithsburg on Saturday, "Do you believe?"
No one from PhDispatch.com, in an effort to remain objective, offered an answer. In hindsight, we were wrong not to say "yes" - just as wrong as that first set of rankings.
This season has a chance to be much more special for the Huskies than it already is. Two more wins. One at a time.
Go Huskies.