Crazy day in Lehigh Valley Conference softball

http://blogs.mcall.com/groller/

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Because of deadlines, the Top 10 poll and standings for our softball package in the Friday ACTION section must be done early, before the results of Thursday's games are known.

And sometimes those Thursday results can drastically change things.

At 4 o'clock this afternoon, I had Liberty on top of the poll because the Hurricanes were undefeated.

But it's now 11:30 and if I had to do the poll over again, Becahi would have moved to the spot and Liberty would have dropped after getting thumped by Parkland 17-5 today.

And the Hurricanes wouldn't have been the only LVC team to drop in the poll. Whitehall, which has now lost two straight, would have been dropped as well after losing to Easton, 6-3.

And so would have Emmaus after the Green Hornets fell to Nazareth, 7-6.

Parkland, Nazareth and Easton, three traditionally strong programs, looked like they were middle-of-the-pack teams until today. Maybe the Trojans, Blue Eagles and the Red Rovers are better than we thought. Maybe not. We'll see.

Three weeks into this season, it's still hard to get a handle on who's truly strong and who has just benefitted from playing a weak schedule.

With the exception of Becahi's Joelle Morey, there doesn't appear to be a dominant pitcher in the LVC and that means a lot of high scores and unpredictable finishes like we saw today.

With the exception of the three Allentown schools, and even Central had shown signs of improvement, there are nine teams capable of winning on any given day.

Freedom coach Denny Hollinger was frustrated when I talked to him earlier in the week and he is the main subject of my Friday column.

But wins over CCHS and Allen may have been enough to boost his spirits and the Pates might start to play better now that they've won a few games and should feel better about themselves.

If I had to rank the 12 teams in the LVC right now, I'd go this way:

1. Becahi 7-1, 4-1

2. Liberty 7-1, 4-1

3. Nazareth 5-3, 3-2

4. Emmaus 7-1, 4-1

5. Whitehall 4-3, 3-2

6. Parkland 4-2, 3-2

7. Northampton 6-3, 2-3

8. Easton 3-4, 2-3

9. Freedom 3-6, 2-3

10. CCHS 2-4, 2-3

11. Allen 2-6, 1-4

12. Dieruff 0-8, 0-5