As the HS season is in full swing, the Southern schools have a leg up with weather and two weeks of non stop baseball, while 40+ Northern Utah schools have made the pilgrimage to the annual preseason tourneys' that are common place at Snow Canyon, Dixie, Crimson Cliffs, Pine View, Desert Hills and Hurricane. Some Northern Utah schools have only played 2-4 games, as they have stayed closed to home, and the weather has been brutal. I do expect the traditional powers of the north to move up, as they play more games, and weather warms up, but one common theme has been some of the North's bigger arms that have colleges tracking them down, have not come out throwing well, and in some cases have lost some velocity and are getting hit. 

Some of the top college prospects that play at traditional .500 programs, are being buoyed by teammates that have vastly improved and are having good early season success and the top players are playing very well, thus improving their teams records and beating some of the traditionally good teams. That is a good thing. One thing that has stood out, and things can change, is there is a lot of parity this year up north and only a handful of schools are having early season success, and many of the success stories are coming from programs on the rise. Last year it was 2-3 schools up north and the same amount down south were dominating the rankings and were posting lopsided records and big run scoring games. 

So far through the first two weeks, a resounding statement is being made by all 6 Washington County 4A programs, as the 6 schools have combined for a 40-10 overall record vs central and northern Utah schools from 3A-5A. Now that the south is moving into league play this week and Snow Canyon hosts another tourney, this weekend, in addition to league play on top of that, expect 4A Region 10 to beat up on each other throughout the next 6 weeks.

American Fork remains at #1 after the prestigious Arizona - Boras Classic, which hosts some of the top ranked schools in the west and the Cavemen produced a 4-1 record. their only loss, came to another national powerhouse national top 10 program in Hamilton HS (AZ) that boasts a former Utah HS player, who has a chance to go in the 1st Rd of the MLB 1st Year Player Draft in Gavin Turley, OF, who leads the nation in HR's with 8, through 8 games. With scouts out in abundance, Fisher Ingersoll, SS (TCU), Ryder Robinson, 2B (TCU) and Kaden Carpenter, OF/LHP (Utah) showed well, as did BYU commit Easton Jones, 3B. 

Many things factor into these rankings, those being, win-loss record, strength of schedule and the players that carry those teams. Another important factor is how many college commits and prospects a team is carrying. Lets face it, teams with college level talent, may not blend well and not play well together at times, but overall they usually do and if a team has a stacked lineup of those types of players, they usually win out in the end and come out on top.

It may appear at first glance, as if this scout is biased towards the southern Utah teams at the top, however their records speak for themselves and they have a vast amount of college prospects and commits in their lineups, making for some lopsided matchups. With only 6 teams in Washington County and the growing population, the teams are not watered down, but stacked with college level talent. The handful of dominant northern Utah teams that dot the top of the rankings each year, I look for in the end for that to possibly be what ultimately happens as the season unfolds and the weather warms up, but after those teams, there will be some volatility each week after the top 10 or so teams, as they are all evenly matched and don't have the fire power as some of those schools that usually do. 

Utah Power 25 Rankings