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My guess is we will find out who the better teams are next week. Don't count out University High!

I got the chance to see Musselman vs Nitro,North Marion,Martinsburg.I got to see Martinsburg vs University and Morgantown as well.

All though,comparing teams based on scores is useless because different teams matchup better with others,etc.
You can't say that team a beat team b by 20 but only beat team c by 10 so team c is better.Matchups,rivalries,all of this play in.

With that being said,NO I do not think Martinsburg is better than North Marion.HOWEVER Martinsburg does boast 2 Division 1 players and that in itself gives them a chance at least. You cannot say that Martinsburg has zero chance vs anyone in the state,not when they have 2 capable kids that can score 25-30 a night.Kids like that can and have carried teams to titles in the past.

As far as Nitro. I think Martinsburg is as good as or better than Nitro. Nitro happened to beat Huntington.

When I saw Martinsburg vs University,Martinsburg looked terrible and flat on that day. University is good,no doubt,but didnt a bad Martinsburg team beat University last year when University was much better? And in the Morgantown game,Martinsburg had a 13 point lead at Halftime and Morgantown came out blazing in the 3rd quarter and it was a 3 point game with 30 seconds left.That was with their point guard and with Brewer having an unusual cold night.

The power index is a good tool,because it shows when a team plays a tough schedule. Sort of like with the football ratings. Some AAA football teams go 9-1 or 10-0 yet are ranked 6th or lower.Why? Because of their schedule.Obviously Martinsburg has played a good schedule as has Jefferson. For those of you on the other side of the state to assume we play nobody,when you don't know who the nobodies are is foolish. I think Martinsburg got alot of points from Spotswood Virginia a team favored to win AA in Virginia that Martinsburg beat by 8 points and also by beating Middletown MD at Middletown,where that team had not lost a game at their place in 4 years.

With all of this being said,I TOTALLY AGREE to get respect in the state Panhandle teams have to win some games at the tournament.But I also say that you cannot take history into account ,because just like in football,Martinsburg was a doormat before coach Walker and the big growth of poplulation in the EP area.You will see the talent level continue to rise in this area due to the number of DC and Baltimore area people moving in,period.Eventually ,if not this year,our girls teams will make a run.I think Hedgesville did win a game a few years ago at the tournament.Also,do people all over the state realize that Berkeley County was the last county to get middle school sports? Just 5 years ago.And now there are more and more AAU teams in the area than ever.I just saw where Vicki Bullett who is a gold medalist and all-american is having 2 teams this year and she has had some in the past. The team that the current Martinsburg kids and Stephenson from Musselman and Marshall from Jefferson played for finished high in the elite division of AAU 2 years ago.These kids (Robinson,Marshall,Stephenson)have already been allstate since their sophomore years,so don't tell me the talent level is not growing or here in the panhandle.But for some teams it takes a year or 2 to learn how to win at the big stage. Martinsburg got pounded in the AAA football playoffs when Walker first took them,but 3 years later with Sowers and Barrett they went to the champ game 3 of 4 years.It takes a little time,but talent can speed up the process and Martinsburg has some talented girls.

But for anyone to get on this board and say Martinsburg has no chance of beating University,Morgantown,Nitro or even Huntington is crazy. North Marion will be a battle to beat for ANYONE.Don't just point out EP teams trying to beat them.I'll tell you this,if I was any team in the state and I drew Martinsburg in the first round,I would by no means take that as a cake walk.Be honest,if you were a coach in the state,would you like the chore of stopping their talent the first round? With 2 Division 1 kids on ANY team in West Virginia they have a chance. Its not like we are in NY City or Philly where teams have 5-6 Division 1 players.

NMarion ,who by the way got beat at states by number 6 seed Beckley last year,is the favorite,but they are not a lock.The other 7 teams that make the tournament could shake out in many ways,shapes and forms.

as an innocent bystander reading these boards everyone gets too bent out of shape over nothing. i think the ep has some quality teams. not that i have ever seen any of them play. i dont think you should pull other teams out of a schedule and say that a team had it easy. compare the teams in this post that are being talked about. that appears to be martinsburg, mhs, uhs, and south. all the original post said was martinsburg is ranked ahead of the other three yet lost to all three of them. who cares who else they played during the season, they lost all three games. logic would say that the other three would be ranked ahead. i think that marinsburg is very good but look at the facts as they are today. if they go down to states and beat those three then the facts will change in their favor but as of today i don't know how you can make an argument for them. in fact looking at mart. schedule two of the three games were at martinsburg so i think that would hurt the argument that teams wont go there. as far as common opponents north beat mussleman worse then they beat preston and east fairmont i believe. hedgesville did not beat goretti as bad as preston did and martinsburg beat goretti worse then all of them. hedgesville lost to berkely by two. berkely beat mussleman by twenty. berkely only beat grafton by two, preston beat grafton by 22 east fairmont beat preston. what do those games say about the ep area compared to the ncac. to me NOTHING because you never know the circumstances around those games where they played different people instead of each other. all that matters is the head to head. unfortunately for martinsburg at the current moment they are 0-3.

There is no way any logic is involved in this so called power index.

Well well well, I hope that whoever does represent us comes down there and knocks you all off your high horses!!!!! We have never gotten any respect from the rest of the state, especially girls, so I guess we will have to see.

I don't see too many teams from other parts of the state traveling up here to play our teams on a regular basis, probably for the same reason we don't play you on a regular basis. I truly hope our team comes down there and beats your pants off. And by the way, we have more than a COUPLE of "nice individuals"" up here! Why, if I am not mistaken, you sound worried!

Maybe I am wrong, but we are up here with FIVE, count em 5, (soon to be 6) AAA teams within 15 - 30 minutes away from each other. I am venturing to say that the pools you draw from are from a much larger area per school, how many of your schools are consolidated? Makes a big difference. If we took the top girls from each of our schools and put them on one team, guess what? We'd come to Charleston and kick everyone's butts to Kentucky, period!

The opinions expressed in this post are mine and no one else's, if I am wrong sorry, but this is what I have always heard and I am tired of not getting any respect. Why not just wait until after the state tournament to brag and preen? IF you have a reason that is.

I agree compltely Cougar36, all 4 of those teams have been talked up way too much all season. Dont get me wrong, there are a couple nice individuals in the panhandle but as teams they are all over rated. Martinsburg gets some respect from me, but I still dont even think they could beat a Morgantown team without Micheals. If the represenative from the panhandle goes to states and beats a highly ranked team then maybe they are deserving of the talk they get, but until then I completely agree all are over rated.