Baseball playoff field decided going into last game of district season, but seeding on the line

Posted 4/28/22

The Seven Lakes win could potentially shake up the District 19-6A playoff seedings depending on what happens Friday.

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Baseball playoff field decided going into last game of district season, but seeding on the line

Posted

Seven Lakes and Cinco Ranch had been neck and neck.

With just two games left in the district season, the Spartans and Cougars were separated by just one game, with all signs pointing to a potential tiebreaker game happening between them for the final playoff spot coming out of District 19-6A.

Cinco Ranch had its chance to clinch a playoff berth and knock Seven Lakes out of contention last week, when the two faced off. But Seven Lakes jumped out to an early lead and held on to win a closely contested matchup.

For Seven Lakes, that matchup was a do or die situation, if the Spartans had lost, Cinco would have held the tiebreaker between the two teams, while also holding a game lead heading into the last week of the season, effectively eliminating the Spartans from the playoffs.

But with the win, everything changed, and Seven Lakes controlled its own destiny heading into the final two games of the district season.

“For a second there this season, we lost hope, said senior third baseman Cade Climie. “But our coaches believed in us the whole time and everyone has come together in these past two weeks. We tried to focus on the bigger picture and not ourselves. We got away from that team culture at first and worried about ourselves and our individual stats. But these past few weeks have been the opposite, we’ve found our way back into it and now we know what we have to do to get to the playoffs.”

But it still looked like a tough road for the Spartans to clinch that playoff spot. They were set to play Katy on Tuesday and then Taylor Friday, Taylor is currently in to the No. 3 seed out of the district and has already beaten Seven Lakes once this season.

 “We know how important this is going to be for us,” said Seven Lakes pitcher Nathan Johnson. “We just have to keep going. We’ve been playing good and we just need to continue that, keep practicing and not worrying about anything we can’t control.”

But, the Spartans didn’t even need a second game to lock up that playoff spot, as Seven Lakes beat Katy 4-0 on Tuesday to clinch the No. 4 seed in district with one game to play in district.

Now, the Spartans are just focusing on continuing their hot play.

“Everyone has a role on this team, and we’ve been very good about letting the next guy work and letting things come to you,” said Seven Lakes head coach J.R. Voyles. We can’t go out there and try and run rule somebody or try to end things with one swing, we just have to go out there and play our baseball. That’s the biggest things, if we just stay within ourselves, we are a good team.”

NOTE

The Seven Lakes win could potentially shake up the District 19-6A playoff seedings depending on what happens Friday.

As of now here are the current seedings.

  1. Tompkins
  2. Katy
  3. Taylor
  4. Seven Lakes* (locked in to fourth seed)

The four playoff teams will all play each other Friday, with Katy playing Tompkins and Taylor playing Seven Lakes. The Spartans are locked into the fourth seed, but the rest of the seeds could change.

The winner of the Tompkins vs. Katy game will get the No. 1 seed out of the district. But if both Tompkins and Taylor win Friday, then it would leave the Mustangs and Tigers tied in the district standings with neither owning the tiebreaker. This would lead to either a seeding game or a coin flip between the two with the winner taking the second seed and the loser falling to the third seed.

Katy ISD, sports, baseball, Tompkins, Katy, Taylor, Seven Lakes