Week #5 Regional & National High School Rankings

As the season moves into the month of October, we want to make a couple of notes about our ranking methodology and philosophies. We often get questions about why a team moved down when they won, why a team that is 10-0 not ranked or ranked higher, etc.. There are 2 major points that address these type of questions–

1) Our rankings take into account multiple years of results and we stick with the philosophy of you have to beat somebody or prove it on the field to be ranked or move up in the rankings. An example: A team may be very successful in their district/county and win year after year, but then they are not competitive when they move into the state tournament and face teams from different districts/counties. We would generally stay aware of that team, but they would probably not move into or up in the rankings unless they prove that they can compete outside of their district/county. So that may be why a 12-0 team is not ranked. We do a lot of homework on our preseason rankings to take into consideration the previous year and years, key returners/players lost to get to a good starting point for teams to then have to prove it on the field.

2) Our rankings aren’t a straight line. We don’t just look at this week’s results for 1 team to figure out where they belong. How teams are ranked is all relative to the group of teams we are looking at and how they are all doing. Also, certain wins and losses may become more or less important over time depending on how those teams are doing. An example: A ranked team may have a 2 or 3 win week, and move down a spot or a couple of spots in the rankings. This may be because another team proved it on the field and registered a big win to bump ahead of them or perhaps a previous big win or loss may not mean as much (or may mean more for another team) and we want to take that into consideration.

With over 2,200 High Schools competing on the field this Fall, it is a rather daunting task to rank the top programs on a weekly basis. We really try to stay consistent with our philosophies and compile as much information as possible to base our decisions on, which is very difficult given the incomplete and inconsistent information available to us! Some teams we can barely find scores for, some coaches respond to our emails/some don’t- so while it is not a perfect system, we do believe we’re doing the best we can with the information we have. We read through all emails we receive on ranking feedback, so if you have some important information to share that you think we’re missing or need to know, please email us: admin@maxfh.longstreth.com.

View complete Week #5 Regional Top 20 Rankings and National Top 25 Rankings below!

A note on our rankings: Weekly we track over 150 team’s schedules and results, which is a daunting task given the inconsistent availability of up-to-date High School field hockey information online across the country. While we try our best to look out for new teams on the rise or to add, logistically we heavily rely on how our previously ranked teams are doing, and we look for any teams who beat, tie or challenge one of them. If you think we are missing a team, please let us know! We ALWAYS welcome productive feedback and want you to let us know if we are missing a team or if you think a team should be ranked higher or lower. Email us: admin@maxfh.longstreth.com