November 6, 2025 - Here We Go, Playoff Edition (Blog #3)

(Apologies for the formatting...the tables down below were an issue!)

Congratulations to our first playoff qualifier - C1 #3 Metro rolled to a 6-1 win over Brentwood in the D2 final Wednesday. 

Seven of the 17 games last night were decided by one goal - four involving #1 seeds, who all ultimately advanced - but it just highlights how difficult winning a district championship in soccer is as the favorite.

The big news from Wednesday was the elimination of last year’s C2 champ, #2 Clayton at what was a tense night at Lutheran South. #8 Bayless sent the Greyhounds home in a tight 1-0 game while #3 Affton held off the hosts 1-0, setting up two 20-game winners for the D2 finals Friday.

C4’s evening didn’t disappoint, either. Districts 4, 5 and 8 all looked like quality matches on paper and that’s exactly what we got. Nixa outlasted Ozark 4-3 in OT for the right to play Glendale, 2-0 winners over host Republic. In D8, Liberty North avenged an earlier loss to rival Liberty with a convincing 3-0 win. It was just Liberty’s second loss on the season. In the other D8 final, 1-seed Park Hill South pulled away from #4 Staley after a 1-1 halftime for a 4-2 win. In STL D4 play, top seeded Ft. Zumwalt West eked out a 1-0 win over Timberland and 2-seed St. Dominic earned a small measure of payback with a 2-0 win over Liberty. Liberty eliminated Dominic 3-2 in 2OT last season and 1-0 in 2023.

Only three games on the C3 slate last night, but a mild shocker in STL where host #7 Priory ended #2 Westminster Christian’s (the 2023 C2 champs) season, 2-0. Priory gets #1 Chaminade next. Top seed Pembroke Hill cruised to a 4-0 win over Belton in the D7 semis, but 2nd seed St. Michael had all it could handle with 3 seed Raytown before escaping with a 3-2 win. The two will meet Friday for that championship.

C1 had two MPR upsets in the same district last night. Although seeded first, Laquey was technically an MPR underdog to 4 seed Fair Grove. Laquey held up its seed with a tough 1-0 result, while 3 seed Greenwood took out 2 seed Dixon 4-2. The top two teams in D7, Barstow and Lone Jack, had no problems in semi play and will settle that champion Friday. Barstow topped Lone Jack 1-0 all the way back on Sept. 3, 1-0. Always interesting to see how teams progress from early in the season to meeting again in the playoffs. In D8 top seeded Faith Christian will play host Northland Christian in that final. Northland upset 2 seed Frontier STEM 5-0 and Faith Christian survived a 2-1 affair with Cameron. That final is Monday.

Onto Thursday where nine more champions will be crowned across 35 matches in all four classes - our last “big” night with regards to the amount of games played. 75% of the C2 field will be known after tonight as six of those district finals are on tap, while we also get 26 semis this evening. Three of the state’s #1 teams are in action with only C3 #1 Chaminade off. C4 #1 Rockhurst and C2 #1 Springfield Catholic look for playoff bids, while C1 #1 Veritas Christian is in semi action.

Before we spotlight tonight’s finals, a quick trip into the mechanism that is the MO Power Rankings. You can either stick with this and get rewarded at the end with some info on tonight or skip the fun altogether and scroll down, but a bit of a background may be of some interest.

The initial foray into a rankings system (outside of a coaches poll) actually started in the 2019 boys season and has evolved since into an interesting (at least in our minds) way to analyze team strength based on not only results, but also the schedule that was played. Playing stronger teams leads to higher points and a higher ranking and thus takes away some of the inconsistencies with a team’s overall record. A perfect example this year would be Clayton, last year’s C2 champs, who finished this season with a 10-10-1 mark after being knocked out by Bayless last night. A .500 record doesn’t look all that spectacular, BUT Clayton’s schedule (daunting, to say the least, for a C2 school) and results within that schedule had them as the #2 team in C2 heading into the playoffs. 

We have obviously made some tweaks from that original 2019 attempt, but the intent has remained the same. The good thing is that we’ve been able to identify some characteristics of games going into the playoffs that will help with fans, coaches and players when it comes to comparisons and what could be the most competitive games. The data we’ve gathered is across 1,014 games from 2021-to day 3 of this year’s tournament.

The big number to know is .40. Teams with MPR scores within that 0-.40 range are basically considered toss ups. When a team with a +.40 or above LOSES, that’s when you can start looking at it being a true upset. Obviously the larger the discrepancy, the bigger the upset - more on that in a minute.

​Year                 Games      Upsets         Correct         Accuracy %
2021                 220             52             168                76.4
2022                   222             49             173               77.9
2023                 226             47             179                 79.2
2024                 226             47             179                 79.2
2025 (Day 1–3) 120             14             106                 88.3
5-Year Total     1,014         209             805                 79.5

As you can see, the MPR has gotten better each year. There will be some shockers and there will be some top teams who don’t make the Final Four - mainly because soccer is one of those sports where one chance is all it takes to advance and the way the postseason is designed by MSHSAA to have regional representations at each class level, instead of potentially the “best” teams there. This is how we always end up with “Districts of Death” (usually in STL) where we have many quality teams all within 20 minutes of each other. Only one can advance and those district games are often worthy of a state championship. This year’s accuracy will likely drop a bit, but for now, this playoff has played out mostly how the numbers say they would.

So, looking ahead (and behind) can give us a good idea what teams are favored and who has a great chance to advance. The state seeds teams based on head-to-head, schedule strength, record, etc. in order to set the brackets, but after that, the playoffs are won on the field. Many factors go into playoff success (and failures), such as late-season injuries, travel (for example, C3 #10 Summit Christian is the 1 seed in D5, but to advance there would mean three 2+ hours one way trips to Jeff City) as well as just plain matchup issues with other teams. Field quality and (not so far this year, but previously), weather can also impact games. Plus, there is the “upset factor” that plays heavily into soccer, which leads us to…

Point diff.  Games      Higher-PR Wins    Upsets  Higher-PR Win %    Upset %
0.00–0.40       378        219                        159           57.9                        42.1
0.41–0.99       305        273                        32            89.5                        10.5
1.00–1.99       200        197                          3            98.5                          1.5
≥2.00              131        130                          1             99.2                            0.8

0.4 is the universal cliff
81.5 % of all upsets (170/209) occur ≤ 0.40 gap
Upset rate drops 4× beyond 0.4

And now we’re back to that magical .40 number. Anything goes within that 0-.40 range, but after that, it gets decidedly more difficult (although not impossible - those make the best stories!) to advance. We’ve already had a 1.93 upset win this season (Lutheran KC over Frontier School of Excellence) and six others outside of the .40 range. Tonight will likely provide a few more.

(For fun, we’ll also post the biggest MPR upset of all time tomorrow…feel free to send us your guesses.)

All that being said, here are the championship matchups tonight and the favored MPR teams (+). Two of the games have top seeds who aren’t favored by the MPR and two others who are in the definite “toss up” range. We’ll see how it looks tomorrow - big night ahead, enjoy! (Seeds are #.)

C1, D5: #1 Sacred Heart (+1.72) vs. #2 Stover
C2, D1: #1 Perryville (+.63) vs. #3 St. Pius X (Festus)
C2, D3: #1 Principia vs. #2 Orchard Farm (+.42)
C2, D4: #1 Father Tolton (+.22) vs. #3 Southern Boone
C2, D5: #1 Springfield Catholic (+.99) vs. #2 (Logan-Rogersville)
C2, D7: #1 Pleasant Hill (+.06) vs. #2 Harrisonville
C2, D8: #1 Excelsior Springs vs. #3 Maryville (+.08)
C4, D6: #1 Rockhurst (+1.57) vs. #2 Lee’s Summit North
C4, D7: #1 Rock Bridge (+.82) vs. #2 Blue Springs South