There are 14 players on SPA Red, not 12, and just because 5 of them are on J Serra / Mission, that doesn’t indicate a bias in the ODP selection process.
Do you have any reason to believe any one of the five J Serra players didn’t earn their spot? As a note to the board, I have double-checked to be sure all of the following details are public and I am not divulging any private information. That said:
The five SPA Red athletes who attend J Serra are Lars Knepper, Christopher Koo, Dylan Park, Andrew Schneider, and Stefan Vukojevic. Every single one of those athletes gained recognition before attending J Serra and Mission WPC. Every one of them.
Lars Knepper was named to the Development National Team while playing for Laguna Beach WPC.
Christopher Koo was named to the Development National Team while playing for Patriot.
Dylan Park was named to the Development National Team while playing for Patriot.
Andrew Schneider was named to the Development National Team while playing for OCWPC.
Stefan Vukojevic was named to the Development National Team while playing for Del Mar.
That J Serra has five kids on SPA zone team doesn’t indicate ODP selection is biased. It indicates J Serra is effective at reaching out to NTSC kids selected to the Development National Team while playing for other clubs. To be clear, I am not hating on J Serra. I admire the school, the program, and their coaching staff. They got a high schooler named to the US Olympic team (who also originally gained recognition while playing for someone other than Mission).
Can we please stop with all the accusations of bias and give coaches the benefit of the doubt?
My kid is in that mix of Cadet kids, and he is very honest in his assessment of the group. Every kid you named he would say is completely legit and deserving to be there. Of the makes and cuts, it seemed (to me) that the assessment at the scrimmage against PSW was fair and the kids who were selected made the most impact. Also, PSW’s Cadet team is going to be really really good at ODP.
JSerra has arguably the best freshman class in the nation. It’s that good and their best prospect got moved up to Youth. Menlo High School also had a terrific freshman class. Cathedral Catholic and The Bishop’s freshman classes are quite good as well.
The additional one from JSerra sounds like the one that you mentioned that moved up to youth. There is at least one other one that is close. The whole Mission 14s starting unit is listed and deservedly so. Del Mar, Newport, CIU, 680 and Stanford all played them close last year. Each of those teams should have multiple kids represented at ODP.
USA Academy (Cadet World Team from Worlds) played well against UC Irvine. Kai Kaneko, Jackson Shaw, Aidan Shin, Lucas Ruano, and Nathan Greenberg were solid.
Are the full rosters for Cadet / Youth published or consolidated anywhere with the 3 major SoCal Zones? I’d love to hear predictions based on Rosters/Coaches!
I’d say that that is what those programs would like you to think. Could be that many of the best players are there. Marco made that clear with his mic drop post earlier.