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YAIAA tournament: Breaking down the scenarios


The YAIAA basketball regular season will wrap up in earnest tonight, with the final full slate of local boys' and girls' games. And while most of the spots for this year's YAIAA girls' and boys' tournaments have been secured, there are still a few details left to be hammered out tonight. After the jump, I've broken down all the YAIAA tournament's various seeding scenarios, and highlighted what games you need to be paying attention to tonight. For clarity purposes, we'll tackle the two tournaments one at a time. If necessary, you can refer to the YAIAA boys' and girls' standings here... THE GIRLS The girls' side is fairly clear-cut. - The top seed in Section 1 (consisting of Divisions I and II) is set. That will be Red Lion. - The top seed in Section 2 (Divisions III and IV) is also settled. York Catholic earned the outright Division IV championship Monday with a win against Delone Catholic, and also secured a No. 1 seed in the YAIAA tournament. The Squirettes will be the No. 2 seed. - With a win at Northeastern on Tuesday, Spring Grove (the Division II champions) would be the No. 2 seed in Section 1. A loss, and the Rockets would likely end up No. 3 behind Dallastown, which hosts South Western tonight. The Wildcats are guaranteed a playoff spot, and cannot drop any lower than the No. 3 seed. - The final spot in Section 1 will be determined tonight in Fawn Grove, when Kennard-Dale meets Dover. Whoever wins gets into the league tournament. Dover won the team's previous matchup this season, 50-40. - Eastern York, the Division III champions, will be the No. 3 seed from Section 2. The final spot in Section 2 belongs to Biglerville, which has an 8-5 league record and holds the head-to-head tiebreaker against York Suburban (7-5 heading into tonight). - So then, a look a potential bracket: 1-1 Red Lion vs. 2-4 Biglerville 1-3 Dallastown vs. 2-2 Delone Catholic 2-1 York Catholic vs. 1-4 Kennard-Dale/Dover 2-3 Eastern York vs. 1-2 Spring Grove The girls' tournament begins with quarterfinal doubleheaders on Friday, and wraps up with the championship game next Thursday at 7 p.m. at York College. THE BOYS - The top seeds in each section are set. William Penn will be the No. 1 seed from Section I, while Eastern York will be the top seed from Section II. - The No. 2 and 3 seeds from Section I will be Dallastown and Central York, likely in that order. Unless, that is, Central York beats Spring Grove tonight and Dallastown loses an away game against South Western. In that scenario, the Panthers and Wildcats would have an identical league record, with Central owning the tiebreaker. - The fourth and final seed (and a meeting with Eastern York) would then go to the Division II winner, either Dover or Northeastern. The team's have identical 7-6 records in division play. If they finish tied for the division title, we would then have to resort to tiebreakers. Assuming both teams win Tuesday (which, considering the way this division has gone, may not be smart), the first tiebreaker (head-to-head) would be a wash, since the teams split regular season meetings. The second tiebreaker (record against divisional opponents) would also cancel out, since Dover and Northeastern would have both split with West York and swept Kennard-Dale and New Oxford. The third tiebreaker, record in cross-division play, is where we see the difference. Both teams lost to William Penn and Dallastown. But Dover beat Central York, whereas Northeastern lost to the Panthers. Therefore, Dover would earn the playoff berth. If both teams lost Tuesday, however, Northeastern would get in because it would have swept Kennard-Dale and Dover would have only split with the Rams. Basically, it's pretty simple for Dover: Beat Kennard-Dale at home on Tuesday, and the Eagles are into the tournament. - In Section II, three of the four teams are set. Eastern York, Hanover and Delone Catholic are all in. - York Suburban has inside track to the final playoff spot, but the Trojans must beat Susquehannock on Tuesday. If the Warriors win, the teams would have identical 10-4 records, and would then have to play in a special play-in game on Thursday to determine who gets into the tournament. - For seeding purposes: Suburban, Hanover and Delone all have three losses in league play. But according to the tournament guidelines sent out by the league, seeds within a section are based on winning percentage. Division IV teams play one more game than Division III teams. Based on that, if all three win out, Hanover and Delone would both be 12-3 in league play, versus an 11-3 mark for Suburban. That would give Hanover and Delone higher seeds in the tournament. That doesn't seem quite fair to the Trojans, but such is life. Hanover would then have the tiebreaker over Delone Catholic, based on its win against Suburban earlier this year. The Squires, on the other hand, lost to the Trojans. So assuming all three win out using this logic, Hanover would be the second seed, followed by Delone and Suburban. - Using this setup, then, the potential pairings for the tournament could look like this: 1-1 William Penn vs. 2-4 York Suburban/Susquehannock 1-3 Central York vs. 2-2 Hanover 2-1 Eastern York vs. 1-4 Dover/Northeastern 2-3 Delone vs. 1-2 Dallastown Keep in mind, the final pairings for the boys' won't be known until Wednseday, when Hanover visits Biglerville for a make-up contest. The boys' tournament begins with quarterfinal doubleheaders on Saturdays, and wraps up with the championship game next Friday at 7 p.m. at York College.