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Last week, before Midd-West closed out the regular season at East Juniata, Mustangs coach Aaron Ettinger had a simple answer as to whether his team could still qualify for District 4’s Class AAA boys tournament.
Midd-West had to win that night, he said – and Montoursville had to lose. The Warriors won, and based on the coach’s statement, our story and headline the next morning reflected what we believed to be the fact that the Mustangs were sidelined.
Not so fast, said the District 4 chairman. Montoursville and Mifflinburg still had more games to play, which could create a three-way tie for the eighth seed. And Athens, which previously cited a school policy prohibiting teams below .500 from participating in the postseason, was backpedaling like a circus unicyclist being chased by a bear.
Is it any wonder our friend Chris Masse at the Williamsport Sun-Gazette calls the District 4 tournament “the state’s biggest running joke?”
It gets better. We still didn’t know Sunday night whether the Mustangs were in or out – even as the district released the brackets. Because, it turns out, we had to wait for Mifflinburg (5-16) to play Bellefonte Monday night.
Since the Wildcats won that game, they are No. 8 – and let’s face it, who better to represent your district in the postseason than a team with a .273 winning percentage – and both Midd-West and Montoursville are locked out.
Still, nearly half the field enters with a sub-.500 record. No. 5 Shikellamy is the lowest seed with a winning record, above the aforementioned Athens.
You’d think District 4 would have learned its lesson in 2010, when it used an open tournament format for the first (and only) time. Another of our schools, East Juniata, allowed its girls to enter with all of four wins, and the 12th-seeded Tigers humiliated the district by knocking the No. 5 team out of the bracket in the first round – and nearly beat No. 4 after that.
The fact that both opponents were from the Northern Tier speaks volumes about the issues with competitiveness District 4 faces when seeding, but that doesn’t change the fact that it never would have happened – and couldn’t happen this year – if the district stayed with its former .500 policy.
How do you win all your matches and still get seeded below three wrestlers who combine for 13 losses?
That’s a question Juniata fans spend the weekend seeking an answer to after 182-pounder Taylor Foster, 28-0 coming into the District 6 Class AA tournament, was No. 4, behind Huntingdon’s Logan Fisher (26-8), Jeremy Wilson of Bellwood-Antis (23-4) and Penns Valley’s Corey Hazel, the top seed at 29-1.
I don’t think anyone had an issue with Hazel as the top seed, and he proved it by winning the title, knocking Foster into the consolation bracket from the semis. But is that where they should have met? Or should Foster be sporting silver instead of bronze?
Fisher and Wilson both dropped from the quarterfinals; Wilson beat Fisher in the third consy, then lost to Foster and finished fifth, at least salvaging an advancement spot to the region.
Also moving on are the sixth seed, Southern Huntingdon’s Scott Carbaugh, who beat Fisher on the way to the finals, and No. 10 Dalton Waksmunski – Carbaugh’s semifinal victim – who was thumped by Foster for third.
Apparently, that bracket was not seeded by Burpee.
Jeff Fishbein is sports editor of The Sentinel. Contact him at jfishbein@lewistownsentinel.com.