Analysis: Postseason picture is jammed in Class A high school baseball

May 8—MITCHELL — The regular season is winding down in the South Dakota High School Baseball Association's Class A schedule, and a critical final weekend awaits.

The top-five teams in the seed-point standings are separated by 1.1 points, nearly all of them with 13 or 14 wins and only a handful of losses. That makes every game count, with the regular season ending on Sunday, May 10, and the postseason beginning on Friday, May 15, to begin the sprint to the Class A state tournament.

Brandon Valley is the No. 1 team in the standings entering play on Friday, May 8. The Lynx have won six of their last eight games, including a pair of wins over Yankton on May 1 that were valuable in the standings. Brandon Valley holds a .037-point difference over Harrisburg in the standings heading into the final weekend, and those teams have already traded the top-two spots this week.

Harrisburg is 9-3 and in the No. 2 position, and the Lynx and Tigers are likely secure in holding those positions into the postseason. Brandon Valley plays two-win Huron to close the regular season on Saturday, while Harrisburg closes with the matchup against Mitchell on Friday.

The close nature of the standings is apparent with No. 3 Sioux Falls Jefferson (14-5), No. 4 Yankton (14-4) and No. 5 Rapid City Stevens (14-4), all separated by less than three-tenths in the standings.

The three teams all have a win over each other, as Stevens' best win of the season included a victory over Sioux Falls Jefferson on April 25. The Cavaliers have won six in a row and play at Pierre on Saturday to close the regular season.

Yankton started the season 8-0 against Class A teams but had its lone game against Sioux Falls Jefferson washed out. The Bucks' only losses were to Mitchell and O'Gorman and then suffering a doubleheader sweep against Brandon Valley. The Raiders have had a very steady season, with three separate four-game win streaks and winners of eight of their last 10 going into a Sunday matchup with lowly Douglas.

High school baseball follows a power-point seeding system similar to other high school sports in South Dakota, assigning points for wins and losses based on opponents' winning percentage. Only games against other Class A teams count for the seed-point standings and teams must play eight different Class A opponents to advance to the postseason and at least 12 games in order to be seeded.

The rest of the top-eight includes No. 6 O'Gorman (14-7), No. 7 Pierre (16-6) and No. 8 Watertown (6-7), while No. 9 Sioux Falls Lincoln (12-9), No. 10 Sioux Falls Roosevelt (6-12) and No. 11 Mitchell (9-9) are in line for road trips for the best-of-three state-qualifying round next week. Those eight series winners advance to the Class A state tournament on May 22-23 at Ronken Field in Sioux Falls.

Mitchell finds itself with a 9-9 record against Class A foes this season entering its final four games of the season: a doubleheader against No. 2 Harrisburg on Friday and a road doubleheader at Tea Area on Saturday. MHS had two wins over Pierre, a victory over Yankton and defeated Lincoln as major pluses on the schedule, but it also lost five-straight games in the middle of the season and was swept at 15th-seeded Brookings, which kept Mitchell from climbing the seed order.