How does your state advance teams through post-season play?

Texas has 5 classifications. The biggest two classifications (4A adn 5A) advance 4 teams to the play-offs and the other advance 3. We do not have central tourn. sites. It is between the two teams to find a place and format to play. Play-off rounds can be one game or 2 out of 3. If the coaches do not agree, then a coin toss decides. There are 5 rounds to determine 4 regional champions. These 4 teams (in all 5 classifications) go to Austin for the state tourn.

In California we are broken into section and each section is broken into Divisions. In the Southern Section(SS) there are 7 Divisions, 1 being the biggest. In the Southern Section each league sends 3 teams to playoffs, 4 for leagues of 7 or 8 and then you play a single elimination tourn. Once that is over that is it. So every year, just in the SS there are 7 Section champs. There is rumor of going to a State Championship like we have done for football.

PA has four classifications. Our high school is AAAA. There is a district tournament. In our district, the largest in the state and very competitive, it takes a winning record to qualify. However, our district is awarded the most slots in states. A team doesn't have to win districts to advance to states in our district. Some smaller districts only get one slot in states.

There has been recent discussions of adding more classifications. Two years ago it was shot down. I heard it's being discussed again. It's very hard for a 2,000 enrollment AAAA high school to compete with a 4-5,000 enrollment AAAA high school.

This is a pet peeve of mine. The way Oregon handles its state tournament seems designed intentionally to find the one team with a dominating pitcher.

In the top classification (6A) 27 teams enter the five round single elimination tournament (five teams get byes in first round.)

The rounds are scheduled: Friday, Tuesday, Friday, Tuesday, Saturday.

Invariably, the team winning the state tourney has a dominant pitcher who pitches 4 of the 5 games! The only game the ace doesn't pitch is the second round Tuesday game.

I've complained about this for years (even though my own HS won a title using this same strategy when Mike Stutes was the ace.)

All they have to do is schedule the games more tightly, and then the best TEAM rather than the best PITCHER might be what the tourney identifies.

In Kansas they break baseball into 5 classes. Everyone enters a single elim. regional and then 8 teams advance to state. State first round is single elim, then the winners of the semis play for first and the losers of the semis play for third.
Seedings become huge in a single elim format because as you know a team with a 7-13 record might not look too good until you find out they are 7-0 with their ace pitching.

1A 2A 3A 4A
The state is split East and West
Each Conference gets a predetermined amount of playoff spots based on the amount of teams in the conference. 3 is pretty standard some get 4. There are wild cards awarded to balance out the field and these are based on overall record and conference records.

Conference Champion gets the lowest seed from a predetermined conference and so on down the line. You have to win four single elimination games to reach the eastern or wester finals and then its 2-3 for the eastern or western championship. Then the East champ plays the West champ 2-3.

First round is on a Friday and second round Tuesday then Friday - Tues. The East/West finals are on the Thurs right after that Tues game. So this makes it impossible for one pitcher to dominate.

It used to be only conf champions made the playoffs. Then is was expanded to the top two teams in each conf. Now its 64 in the West and 64 in the East. To me it takes away from the importance of the regular season. But alot of people like it because it lets in alot of teams.

Coach May.....64 out of how many teams?

We have 128 out of about 245 advance in the two biggest classes (4A and 5A), and we have 96 out of about 200 advance in the 3 smallest classes (1A,2A, and 3A).

It ends up being over half in each classification.