Maryland All-County Teams: Player of the Year

So the all-met teams came out in our area over the past week. The Post. The Sun. The Gazette. I was a little irritated when reading them. There were just some disagreements I had, and not knowing the exact process. What areas specifically are we talking here and what are the cutoffs? The Gazette focused on AA, but included IAAM, but only the AA portion of it, and the Post is a larger view and gets the WCAC, Montgomery Co. and Northern VA and the Sun covered a large swath as well, but the opposite of the Post with Baltimore, Howard, and AA covered. As i sat internally arguing some picks and wondering what the criteria may be, I realized that I could have done my own. So that was now going to happen. I realized it wasn't really irritation, it was just my instinct that I would have done something slightly different.   As I started in on the process and started outlining things, I realized a few things. It's REALLY hard to draw the boundaries of who to incorporate and who not to. I understood some of the picks now, as you mix in the private school kids, it's going to bump out some public school kids that were deserving. And some positions were VERY hard to pick, just overall there weren't many standouts at those positions, where other positions get a ton of attention. So basically my area is like a mix of all three news outlets, and that's why things bothered me, there's not one perfect answer, but I'm going to separate out the IAAM from AA, because they play teams in Howard and Baltimore too, and I think there's a few kids in both the public and private sides that got squeezed by running them together. It's more apples to apples for me, because now it keeps who plays who together. These picks will be mine, and based on what I've personally seen and know. I'm going to start with this post for player of the year, and decided to do one for each county vs doing one overall for the area I cover.   Player of the year - IAAM:   [player_tooltip player_id='748513' first='Scarlett' last='Netherton'], OH - AACS. Yeah, no one got it wrong picking her. Scarlett is fantastic. I've gotten to watch her for a few years already, where she's just breaking on the radar for people in other areas, and this year she went from really good to terrifying. Watching her dominate a game like she did in the IAAM Championship was just a new level. She can hit from the left or right, and with a LOT of power. She can play defense. Her serve receive is good enough to play all around. She can serve. There were some other worthy players, even on her own roster, but she did this and won a title as a freshman, including going through some of the other big contenders. I'm just going to enjoy watching her live while I can, because it won't be long and I'll be watching her on TV playing for an NCAA title.   Other Contenders: Bryah Breux, [player_tooltip player_id='528707' first='Annika' last='Dandridge']   Player of the year - Anne Arundel County:   [player_tooltip player_id='434861' first='Bailey' last='Swinton'], OH - Arundel. This one was tricky for me. I think if Bailey had stayed at Libero for HS season I wouldn't have blinked twice, but she played OH for her HS team, even though she usually plays Libero. Playing a second position and doing it well enough to not only make the end of season teams, but to be player of the year is no small task. But looking around, and seeing the great run Arundel made, I think she deserves it. She's had quite a career at Arundel, and making this move for the team and doing exceptionally well is a major reason why Arundel was in contention all year.   Other Contenders: [player_tooltip player_id='525341' first='Genevieve' last='Willis'], [player_tooltip player_id='721762' first='Sydney' last='Lawrence']   Player of the year - Howard County:   [player_tooltip player_id='698761' first='Imagine' last='Peltier'], S - Howard. There were quite a few choices here, even on her own roster, in the end though, she was the one. Imagine is just great, she can set everywhere, which helps because she's got weapons everywhere you look, she's got great hands, she plays good defense, she can run a 5-1 or a 6-2, she serves. She really does it all, and she's the heart of that Howard offense. They dominated this year in no small part to Imagine playing so fantastic, and really, one can argue that's two straight years of dominance since they did everything but win it all the year before. She's got another year to go, and they lose a few key senior pieces, but with a setter this good, they are still going to be the team to beat next year too.   Other Contenders: [player_tooltip player_id='829552' first='Anna' last='Fiedler'], [player_tooltip player_id='529251' first='Jessica' last='Li']     Ok, I think that covers my MVPs. I thought about covering Montgomery County too since, I do really cover that area, but I'm not confident that I can get through it to do a full piece on it. So I'm going to try to circle back to that and I'll do a player of the year pick in that post if I can get it out. I know there's a bit of a cliffhanger mentioning other contenders but not why I had them contending, but maybe some of that will be answered in the individual team picks.

So the all-met teams came out in our area over the past week. The Post. The Sun. The Gazette. I was a little irritated when reading them. There were just some disagreements I had, and not knowing the exact process. What areas specifically are we talking here and what are the cutoffs? The Gazette focused on AA, but included IAAM, but only the AA portion of it, and the Post is a larger view and gets the WCAC, Montgomery Co. and Northern VA and the Sun covered a large swath as well, but the opposite of the Post with Baltimore, Howard, and AA covered. As i sat internally arguing some picks and wondering what the criteria may be, I realized that I could have done my own. So that was now going to happen. I realized it wasn't really irritation, it was just my instinct that I would have done something slightly different.