Regionals

Who was the last Eastern District team to win a first round game at the Eastern Regionals? When did it occur? Who was the opponent?

Not long ago Didn't Granby do well a couple of years back.The Eastern District has had very good players in the past and some have gone on to do well at D-1 levels and the pros.Mostly inner-city schools they have seldom had rosters that affords a lot of depth.They were very competitive years back,before Chesapeake and Va.Beach had in-door plumbing.The shift in population growth has put a strain on these schools.I am sorry you have chosen to disguise and ask your question out of idle curiosity when really you are attempting to cast doubt on the eastern districts privilege to have an automatic bid to play in the regionals.Where does your child play? Maury and Post 60 have done well against Chesapeake schools and the Beach.I know they have left a few black-eyes at Indian River and Cox in the past.I am also humble enough to know they have been beat-up pretty good as well,So...

I believe Grandy beat Landstown the last time the Beach and Eastern District were paired together in the regionals. And this past summer i had basically an all Beach American Legion team and Post 60 beat us I think everytime. The Eastern District maybe isnt as strong top to bottom but they do have Talent and some very good coaches, Klein at Churchland and Butler at Grandy and Zebro? at Lake Taylor to name a Few.

I don't have any problem with having the 8 teams coming equally from the 4 districts nor should anyone else IMO.

What I do think is unfortunate is the random seeding of the teams. This year for example it is very likely Western Branch will be one of the strongest teams in the state and it will draw a very tough opponent in what amounts to the round of 32 because of the way the region lays this year. I do think that seeding based on straight win-loss record would allow the best chance for the team that had the best regular season to advance year in year out which is a reasonable thing.

Baseball is a funny game though. One great pitching performance, a couple of at'ems and a few bleeders and someone loses that might win 9 out of 10 times.

Agree totally with luv baseball about 4 districts/8 teams. If you look at all 4 regions in the state, there is at least one district in each region that traditionally is noticeably weaker than the others. Doesn't mean that the weaker districts shouldn't be represented in the Regionals, though, as everybody should have a shot.

I'm not so sure that seeding based upon W/L record is going to work out, though, because it's impossible to get a reasonable or fair seeding for eight teams that play totally different schedules with very little overlap. For example, a team that goes 12-4 in a very strong district may very well be better than a 15-1 team from a very weak one. Although random (or sequential) seedings aren't always fair year-to-year, at least they even the table over the long run.

I meant Granby,not Grandy, Totally agree that Baseball Regionals should be changed, Maybe take top 2 from each District then have Wild Cards based on Virginia Rankings, I think F.C could have made noise last year and I know the S.E D had 4 or 5 teams that were very good. Its all cycles too, the Eastern District will get strong again, too many good coaches that care.

How can I find out what the regional matchups are for the Northern Region? Thanks

Based on the rotation of the past few years, the first round should be Patriot vs. Liberty and Concord vs. National.

I acknowledge that a straight W-L seeding doesn't take into consideration the weakness or stregnth of one distrct vs another. But if a team is suspect I don't think they go 15-1 too often. The alternative would be to use some sort of ranking system ie regional newspaper or coaches poll. I think that could get too involved.

W-L's happened on the field and IMO that is better seeding strategy than what happens now. Heck 8 bingo balls is better than what happens now.

I never said that a 15-1 team is (or would be) suspect. The point was that the 15-1 team, playing in a weak district could very well be weaker than a 12-4 team in a strong district, but under the system you proposed the 15-1 team would be seeded higher. You can plug in whatever numbers you wish: 15-1, 14-2, etc.,
Going to a newspaper poll would, as you say, get pretty involved, and there are some regions in VA that are pretty spread out and may not be covered by only one paper, no matter how large it is. And either a newspaper or a coaches' poll would involve WAAAY too much politics.
I don't think the current system is perfect, or nearly so, but at least it is even and fair over time, which is more than could be said for any other proposed system I've seen mentioned.
I should point out that my son plays for a strong team in a strong district that would probably benefit from any changes you have proposed, so that has nothing to do with my opinion.

I used suspect perhaps deceptive might be a better term because of the streagth of schedule.

Either way the only other event I can think of that randomly seeds it's participants is the World Cup which is a lottery.

MLB seeds it's teams based on W-L even with unbalanced schedules and divisions of relative stregnth. Even Bud Selig is better and smarter than s****r!

Luv, it's not that I'm against seeding -- in fact, I would love to see it -- it's just that I don't see how you can properly seed teams that play no more than 1-2 of a 16-18 game schedule against each other, or even against mutual opponents. In the other leagues, even MLB, there is considerable overlap of schedules, even though as you correctly point out, the schedules are unbalanced.

Totally randomizing the draw, as in a lottery, would also be acceptable to me, although it would still wind up producing unfair pairings and cause a lot of outcry from those teams that do unfairly draw a strong opponent. And it would not achieve your goal of rewarding the stronger/better teams by automatically giving them an easier opponent in the draw.

You and I could go on discussing/arguing this point, and I love (or should I say "Luv") the banter, but I suspect we both have better things to do. Let's just agree to disagree.

BBG - S'all right by me!