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Prep Baseball Update #1 2017: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: 2017 post-season underway

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Welcome to my Prep Baseball Tourney coverage for 2017.  We’re a bit late to get started thanks to my out-of-town trip, and I’ve done little in the way of coverage this year since the local landscape of high-end players hasn’t been as interesting.  But here we go; its tournament time so might as well get started.

Here’s the rough schedule of posting and what we’ll cover:

  • #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff (this post).  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
  • #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA Regional Champs crowned.  Covers: MD state finals, VA regionals tourneys, DC regular season results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
    #3: Virginia Regional Results, DC Tourneys.  Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, DC tourney results.  Usually publishes the first week of June.
    #4: Final Prep Baseball Update: Virginia State Champions crowned.  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.
  • #5: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings; publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.

Northern Virginia

Virginal district tournaments get started last weekend and most are scheduled to finish this week.  The VHSL site has some district brackets already published.  NovaBaseballMagazine has done a great job keeping up conference results and has links to the conference tournaments under its “Standings” links.  Here’s a preview of the district tournaments for local conferences with the leading contenders.

The top four teams from each district tourney form the 16-team regional brackets, to be published later on once all the divisions are finalized.

  • 6-A Conference 5/ConcordeOakton beat Westfield for a district title repeat, not giving up a run in the process.  Robinson and the dangerous Centreville also advance.
  • 6-A Conference 6/Liberty: Madison squeaked by Langley for their 5th straight conference title; they finished the year with just two losses.  South Lakes and McLean also advance to regionals.
  • 6-A Conference 7/Potomac: West Springfield blanked South County in the final, Lake Braddock (the #1 seed) and West Potomac also advance to regionals.
  • 6-A Conference 8/ Cedar Run: Patriot cruised to the district title over Osborne Park.  Osborn and Battlefield also advance.

Regional Preview: The four expected #1 seeds advanced easily; Oakton, Madison, West Springfield and Patriot.  Unfortunately the two best teams (Oakton and Madison) are on the same side of the bracket.  I’m predicting a Madison-Patriot regional final and a Madison victory in a down year for the region.

In the 5-A division:

  • 5-A Conference 13/Capitol: Marshall repeated as district winner, with Wakefield and Edison advancing to regionals.
  • 5-A Conference 14: Briar Woods upset #1 Stone Bridge for the district title, with Broad Run advancing to regionals.
  • 5-A Conference 15: Potomac took the title over upset-minded North Stafford.   #1 seed Stafford also advanced to regionals.
  • 5-A Conference 16: #1 seed Halifax cruised to the district title.  Orange and Atlee also advanced to regionals.

Regional Preview: (5-a Regional bracket): I’m predicting a Potomac-Marshall regional final with Potomac taking the title.  We’ll see how good Halifax is soon enough; they face off against perennial power Stone Bridge in the regional quarters.  Prep Report thinks Halifax is the best 5-A team in the state… but Stone Bridge just handled Stafford easily enough, who they thought were #2.

There are some DC-local teams in the 4th and smaller divisions (mostly in Loudoun County).  We’ll go through them once their brackets are made available on VHSL.  The best 4-A team out there is probably Kettle Run, #1 in Nova Baseball Magazine’s rankings.


Maryland

At this point, the Maryland State tournament is nearly complete; the state finals are this weekend.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below.

  • Maryland 4-A: 2012 champ Northwest defeated several perennial powerhouses to take the 4A-West region title.  Eleanor Roosevelt won an upset-laden 4A-South regional.  #1 seed and powerhouse Severna Park won the 4A-East title with ease, while Baltimore-based Howard upset several perennial contenders to take the 4A-North title.  In the state semis, Howard and Northwest advanced to meet in the state final.
  • Maryland 3-A: Poolesville over Thomas Johnson in the 3A-East, Huntington upsettting Rockville to win 3A-South, 2014 4-A state champ Chesapeake-AA beat River Hill to take the 3A-East, and 2010 state champ C. Milton Wright over Landsdown in a Baltimore-laden 3A-North Regional.  Poolesville will take on Chesapeake in the 3A-final.
  • Maryland 2-A: Middletown won the 2A-East, two-time defending 2-A champ Southern was beaten by former 3-A powerhouse La Plata in the 2A-South final, Fallston won 2A-East and last year’s finalist Eastern Tech won 2A-South.  Middletown and Fallston will battle for the state title.
  • Maryland 1-A:  (mostly smaller schools outside the DC area): Three repeat regional titleists in St. Michaels,  Patterson Mill,  and Pikesville, joined by Boonsboro.  Boonsboro will battle St. Michaels for the state title.

 


DC

  • DCIAA: (2017 playoff bracket): Wilson defeated School Without Walls 7-4 to take the DCIAA title and continue its ridiculous winning streak within DC public school competition.
  • DCSAA: (2017 Playoff Bracket): Gonzaga beat Wilson 9-1 to win the DCSAA baseball title (Wilson upset St. Albans to make the final).

 


Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

State-level Private School tourneys:

  • MIAA: Calvert Hall, Spalding and Gilman were the class of the MIAA Class A all  year.  Boys Latin takes the Class B regular season title while St. Johns Catholic is again the Class C regular season title winner.   Loyola came out of nowhere to beat Calvert Hall in the MIAA-A playoffs.  Boy’s Latin beat Severn to take the MIAA-B final.  St. Johns Catholic ended up beating Gerstell 5-0 to win its 4th straight MIAA-C title.
  • VISAA: The VISAA playoff brackets show the top 8 private schools in each Virginia division.  In Division I; DC local schools Paul VI and Potomac School were upset early, with #3 seed Benedictine taking the VISAA Division I title.  The Miller School took the Division II title with defending champ Greenbrier Christian getting upset in the first round.  Southampton Academy repeated as VISSA Division III titleists.
  • We are waiting for the Maryland Private School Tournament to be announced; it should have some of the better private schools from Maryland, including the non-affiliated but perennial powerhouse Riverdale Baptist.  Details coming later.  It should be interesting to see if the big time MD MIAA schools can touch the nationally ranked Riverdale school.

DC-area Private School Leagues


Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.


 

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

  • Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
  • The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
  • InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
  • Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
  • Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
  • NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

  • https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
  • https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
  • https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
  • https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
  • https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball

Written by Todd Boss

May 25th, 2017 at 3:06 pm

Posted in High School,Local Baseball

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  1. […] DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes […]

  2. […] DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes […]

  3. […] DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff.  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes […]

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