Here’s the week 10 recap, final league standings, and my last “best guess” playoff brackets for divisions 2-5. There was some late movement, as there tends to be. And there is one scenario I don’t feel great about, but it’s what I believe to be correct.
First off, there was an undefeated, outright champion in each of the six leagues this year. Congrats to those programs!
EAL = PV
NAL = Lassen
WSL = Gridley
SVL = Winters (made me look bad last night!)
MVL = Hamilton
SCL = Redding Christian
Now for the brackets. Remember, league standings take priority over playoff points. When two teams tie in their league, head-to-head determines the order. When it’s 3 teams with the same record, that’s where the “tiebreaker” rules have to come in. For the second year in a row, we have a 3-way tie situation in the EAL.
A couple of weeks ago, I looked up the news article from last year regarding the mis-seeding of Red Bluff & Foothill. That article stated the “updated” EAL rules were for playoff points to determine any 3-way ties. If those are still the guidelines, then Chico will be 2nd, Red Bluff 3rd, and Foothill 4th. That won’t feel right, obviously, just one night after Red Bluff defeated Chico. But I do believe that’s how this should play out, and I won’t blame Red Bluff folks for feeling shorted again. The thing to keep in mind is that Foothill could use the same argument for being seeded above Red Bluff, as the Cougars have head-to-head over the Spartans. That’s exactly why there are 3-way tiebreaker guidelines in place.
It’s also hard not to feel for LP, which has one of its best teams in years, but still is unable to earn a home playoff game. The system just isn’t designed to work for the D2 T-Birds, who play in a D3 league.
D3 was pretty straightforward, with Yreka’s win over U-Prep jumping the Miners into the 5-seed, due to their head to head win over West Valley. Gridley should, by my calculations, earn the 1 seed, while Pierce’s loss to Winters caused them to drop below Orland.
I don’t believe there were any changes to the D4 bracket from my previous projections.
The shakeup in D5 came because Portola beat Quincy, which made Portola playoff-eligible, and because Modoc lost to Trinity. It got a little messy, but I feel confident in the final order of those schools.
That’s it for now! I’ll check back in once official brackets come out. Remember, these are just my best guess, and there’s always the possibility that something I’m not aware of changes a team’s placement. We will see!
