March Preview: What to Watch For from Nebraska’s 15s and 16s
On to March. We’ve mentioned that 15s and 16s are going to be a huge focal point of our club coverage this year. February’s events, including Triple Crown NIT, offered a great chance to start diving into the top teams…
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Continue ReadingOn to March.
We’ve mentioned that 15s and 16s are going to be a huge focal point of our club coverage this year. February’s events, including Triple Crown NIT, offered a great chance to start diving into the top teams in these age groups.
Who gets a bid?
This is the big one, right?
The club calendar lends itself to an early spotlight on 18s and 17s, but that dynamic will shift as we turn the calendar to March. A flurry of qualifiers will capture our attention week after week, and the 15s and 16s are about to play a significant part in all the excitement.
My eyes are immediately drawn to the second half of the Northern Lights Qualifier in Minneapolis. You can go ahead and mark me down for a return trip here, and I’d expect to learn a lot about the 15s and 16s there. This is the venue where teams like Premier Nebraska 16 Gold, Premier Nebraska 16 Black, and Nebraska ONE 15 Synergy surged into the national spotlight and made podium runs to secure bids. It’s fair to expect Nebraska ONE to replicate that magic at the 16s level this year, but which 15s teams will emerge at this pivotal event? I’ll be following this storyline closely.
Other qualifiers in March include Northeast, Mideast, Red Rock, Sunshine, and Pacific Northwest. We’ll surely keep tabs on any squads that decide to make the trek to one of these venues, which has certainly happened before.
How will lineups evolve?
Here’s another theme that started to crop up once we arrived at Triple Crown.
I’d expect teams in the 15s and 16s age groups to keep experimenting with lineups and rotations in pursuit of those coveted bids. It’s a trend that makes my scouting journey more exciting, as I get to see different players in a variety of situations and positions.
These variations get a boost from all the players we’ve seen contributing to new teams this year. It takes me back to our new faces, new places feature where we discussed players who have switched age groups, changed clubs, or just moved in from an entirely different part of the country. You can expect us to keep expanding on this list, and we’ll have more to say on lineup variety during our upcoming qualifier coverage.
How many more athletes will land on our radar?
Our ever-growing lists of 2025s and 2026s are about to get a major boost.
Let’s take a moment to appreciate just how stacked the Great Plains Region is, especially when you take Nebraska’s low population numbers into account. I’ve been thumbing back through the multiple waves of teams from regional scrimmages and the Midwest Power League to build a better list of 15s and 16s, and I remain in awe of how many names we can add to the site.
And the opportunities just keep rolling through as we enter March.
Rankings!
Finally, we get to the climax of this pre-March feature. Rankings updates are on the horizon.
Let’s get right down to business. With the travel frenzy of Triple Crown NIT complete and a ton of scouting reports wrapped up from that event, I’ve been able to set target dates on our next set of rankings for 2025s and 2026s:
2025 Rankings: March 13
2026 Watch List: March 20
And, not to be outdone, the 2024 update will precede both of these classes on March 6. The grind never stops, so this set of rankings updates will just be a prelude to yet another refresh as we get deeper into the club season. Consider this upcoming update as a roundup of what we’ve seen already this year–and a window into what’s ahead.