10-30-23 Boys Postseason #1
by Admin on 10/30/23
October 30 Boys Postseason #1
We are off!
Saturday saw 48 district games kick off in Classes 2, 3 and 4. Tonight (Monday) is the biggest slate of games - 59 on tap across the state in all 4 classes - with finals scheduled through next Tuesday (11-7). With the elimination of the sectional round a few years ago, several districts have decided to space out games a bit more so there isn’t the long waiting period between district finals and quarterfinals.
As always, we had a few shockers from the opening round already, but for the most part, Saturday stayed status quo based on seedings and the MO Power Rankings (MPR). 42 of the 48 games went “as scheduled” in both seeding and MPR.
The biggest upset involved MO's reigining master of the upset - C4’s Jackson - but this time it worked against the Indians. Northwest Cedar Hill pulled off a 2-0 win over the 2020 surprise champs. Jackson, seeded 3rd in D1, was also a +1.05 in the MPR and had handled Northwest 3-0 in mid-September.
Another surprise in C4 happened in Columbia when 6-seed Smith-Cotton got an OT winner to eliminate district host Hickman 1-0. Hickman had a +.87 edge over S-C and had defeated the Tigers 2-0 earlier in the season.
C3 also saw a few mild upsets with 9th ranked and D7 3-seeded Warrensburg losing to 24th ranked William Chrisman 2-1, ending a nice breakout season for the Tigers. Pembroke Hill’s regular season wasn’t up to its usual standards (4-15-1), but the 6-seeded Raiders are still alive after knocking off Lincoln Prep 1-0 in its opener. 5-seed Mehlville may have had the best opening round performance in routing 4-seed Union 8-0 in C3 D2.
The bulk of the action is still to come, of course, but there is some benefit in looking back over the past few years to see how teams at the top of our final MPR regular season rankings have fared.
Mostly great for the #1s, so potential good news for Bishop DuBourg (C1), Westminster Christian (C2), Rockwood Summit (C3) and Rockhurst (C4). A side note: Rockhurst will look to join a small list of schools that have won three in a row and seek the perfect season. The Hawklets got off to a great start with a 13-0 win over Ruskin Saturday.
2020 was of course the pandemic year and things were a little different with the rankings and several teams not participating, but both Southern Boone (C1) and Ft. Zumwalt South (C3) entered as favorites and won. MICDS (C2) and Jackson (C4) also won titles, but weren’t the top teams going in.
Enjoy the week, dress warm and stay tuned…
