week 9 May 18-23 Southeastern District

Home stretch coming up.

 

WB, NR and Hickory look to have taken Regular Season Conference titles and the Regional shot that comes with them.  GF and GB look like reasonable shots.  OS and IR could get there but look to have too much work to do.

I know that Hickory's conference takes the two teams in the conference finals as their representatives in the Regional.

In Conference 18, the two conference tournament finalists represent the conference in regional play.  There is no automatic bid.  Silly, when one considers that they actually play each other twice, and other conferences do not.  But so is the way of this insanely flawed new system.

 

As of this writing it seems that NR, KF, and Denbigh will battle for the top 3 seeds.  NR plays both this week, so nothing will be settled until the last game is played.  Otherwise, Lakeland should end up being the 4, and Heritage and Phoebus should wind up the 5 and 6, respectively.

 

Regarding the 4A South Region tournament;  an early peek says that 4 of the top 5 teams in 4A will be playing on the South side of things, assuming they make it to Regionals.  Hence, two of them will not make it to the "State Tournament".  In no particular order, they would be Glen Allen, Hanover, Nansemond River, and Jamestown.  I really don't like a "State Tournament" that only has four representatives.  Then again, that's only one of the many things I don't like about "The Great Realignment".

 

Again, this assumes that the aforementioned do what is necessary to get to the Regional Tournament to begin with.  Not sure which conferences apply automatic bids for regular season champs and which ones require the tournament to decided its representatives.

 

 

 

 

Monday May 18 5:30 King's Fork @ Denbigh

I learned today that Kings Fork would be traveling to Denbigh to finish the bottom of the 7th. I couldn't hardly believe it, but is it true????

 

If so, that would mean that Denbigh proactively denied the opportunity to simply finish the game when they played the other day to force KF to travel for 3 outs.  (Down by 7 runs, mind you)

5-0 GF beats Kecoughtan

WB beats Bethel 2-0.

NR beats Denbigh 13-5.

NR beats Kings Fork 8-4 in a game that was never really that close.  NR will be the 1, with KF the 2 in the conference tournament next week.  Both will receive 1st round byes.

NR should roll through conference tourney.   Hope they do well in Regionals.  Any idea who potential opponents will be?

The 4A South looks to be loaded.  Of the top 5 teams in the state in 4A, four of them are in the South.  Glen Allen, Hanover, Jamestown, and NR.  Not precisely sure what the brackets look like at this time.  As it is, we'll have to wait a week and play some more games to see if those teams actually make the regionals! 

If I have the standings right in Group 6 WB/GF , Group 5 HH/GB and Group 4 NR/KF all finished 1/2 and get first round byes in the conference playoffs.  OS and IR both look to have finished 3 or 4 and with a couple of good games could get through.

 

Decent shot for 6 SED regional teams and hard to see where they don't get at least 3. 

Is it true that in Group 5A conference playoffs HH/GB have to play IR/ Menchville?  No automatic birth to regionals for conference winners?  Only top two in conference tournament go to regionals.  Another flaw in the new system...Different rules for each conference.

I think it is.  Frankly it renders almost everything up to now as meaningless.  Since most of the conferences are 6 teams it gets you a bye in the first round to finish 1 or 2.  That's all you get even if you go undefeated.

 

So if you play 2 good games you go to Regionals.  Do it again there and you go to States.  You can play 4 good games all year and be a State Semifinalist now. 

 

When the SED had a 4 team playoff there were teams capable of beating teams in the regional that didn't even get to play a tournament game in the district.  That is being borne out now.  Consider this, under the old format assuming WB won the regular season title only one of the following would play baseball after the district playoff HH, NR, GB, OS, IR, KF.  In the old format 4 of them would not have made the district tournament.  Now 6 might go to regionals and we'll see about State's but there are 2 defending champions in there who I expect will be tough outs.

 

A few years back a 17/18 win WB team that went to the State Finals the year before and returned the entire team didn't get out of the SED district even to regionals.  They were probably one of the 6 or 7 best teams in the state but lost a tiebreaker to GB for the district title and a tough one to NR in the conference playoff and stayed home.  That year GB won the state title and the only teams they saw that were comparable to the SED was the Patriot teams Lake Braddock and South County.

 

5A PenSouth Conference-top 4 go into Conference Tourney this year and play semi-finals on Monday, 5/25: Finalists go to Region, so it's a one game qualifier. HH/IR and GB/Menchville

In 6A, I see both WB and Grassfield advancing.  I assume that Grassfield will have to beat Woodside to do so, and I'm suggesting they will.  I like Grassfield in a tournament setting with their superior pitching depth.

 

In 5A, I also see both Hickory and Great Bridge advancing.  Menchville has been more solid throughout the season, but Great Bridge has played much better competition, and in a single game, I like Great Bridge with Beinlien on the mound.

 

In 4A, I see Nansemond River and Denbigh advancing.  Kings Fork and Denbigh split their series, with Denbigh handling them with their No. 1 on the mound.  Denbigh will have the benefit of throwing off against their 1st round opponent which will be either Phoebus or Heritage.  Phoebus has a good arm as well, but there is nothing to support him.  If Denbigh can save their No. 1 for Kings Fork, I like them to advance to the championship game, and subsequently the 4A South Regional.  (Although a Kings Fork victory wouldn't floor me)

 

Also, not previously mentioned...Deep Creek needs one win to advance through their conference bracket, and earn a regional bid.

WB already in Regionals.  Won regular season title.