Season goes down to the wire — again

Published 10:49 pm Sunday, April 29, 2007

Bruins coach Todd Middleton would rather not tangle with the math. It’s probably easier to win two games.

That’s essentially what it will take for Northwest Whitfield to get into the Class 4A baseball playoffs heading into the final week of the season. Middleton’s Bruins are tied atop the Region 7-4A standings with Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe with identical 8-4 records, while Dalton and Ringgold trail by a game.

The top four teams from the region advance to state.

Northwest (15-8 overall) finishes the regular season Tuesday at Ridgeland (6-6 in region) and Thursday against visiting Rome (also 6-6 in league play).

“I’ve been telling our guys not to look at anything past Tuesday and Thursday,” Middleton said. “We didn’t take care of business earlier in the season and could have been in a better position.”

Dalton would be in a similar spot as Northwest, but the Catamounts suffered losses to Rome and Ridgeland last week to drop a game on the co-leaders.

The Cats (15-8 overall) close the regular season at home against Southeast and at Ringgold. Tuesday’s game against the Raiders (1-11 in region play) is hardly a “gimme game,” Dalton coach Teddy Craig indicated.

“We have to take these games one at a time,” the coach said. “The tough thing is we’re playing a Southeast team Tuesday that is playing a lot better lately. We can’t look to Ringgold.”

Two-team tiebreakers for Region 7-4A are, in order, records in head-to-head competition and fewest runs allowed in head-to-head games. For example, Northwest and Dalton split their head-to-head meetings this season, meaning the secondary tiebreaker — which team allowed fewer total runs in those games — is required to break a two-way tie between the rival teams.

In the event of a three-way or four-way tie, the tie is broken adding up the wins and losses by each squad against that pool of teams.

Middleton said there’s a particularly wacky scenario out there.

“It’s feasible that the top six teams right now could all be 8-6 after Thursday’s play,” he said.

Craig’s of the same mind set as Middleton, preferring to play ball Tuesday and Thursday and let the course of events play out as it will.

“I don’t want to speculate on what could happen in other games,” Craig said. “We’re shooting to win them both and get to 9-5.

“It’s important to be playing good baseball all week. This is all to get into the state tournament. But the thing is, you don’t want to just get into the tournament — you also want to have success there. Winning this week sets that up.”

Controlling its own destiny at 8-4, LFO comes off a 2-1, eight-inning loss to Northwest on Friday in Tunnel Hill. The Warriors, 17-6 overall, finish the regular season with Rome and Gordon Central.

Ringgold, a playoff team if the season were to end today, rounds out the season with games against Gordon Central and Dalton.