St. Mary – Starting Tuesday night, the Allegheny Coatings Goats will start their quest for their third league championship in a row, the elusive three-peat, in St. Marys Mens League Softball action played at the Robin Road Sports Complex.
The Goats (23-3), regular season champions and the number one seed, will open defense of their title Tuesday night in the 6:50 pm time slot, when they will take on the eighth seed, which is still to be determined (see scenarios later in this article).
Also Monday night, Elk County Tool & Die (24-4), the second seed, will take on seventh seed (still to be determined) at 5:50 pm. ECTD won the Mid-Summer Classic Tournament earlier this summer, defeating Allegheny Coatings in the championship game.
In the early game Wednesday, third seed Metco Industries (16-10) will square off against the sixth seed, which would be the winner of the three team sweepstakes described later in this article. The late game Wednesday night would feature Deprators Beverage and St. Marys Insurance, with the only thing hanging in the balance is which would be the four seed and who would be the five seed.
Thursday night’s schedule would be ECTD vs. #7 seed at 5:50 pm, followed by Allegheny Coatings vs. #8 seed at 6:50 pm.
First though are the two Monday night games that will settle the seeding for spots four, five, six, seven and eight.
The early game will feature Dino’s Place (5-20) against Dream Catch (4-21). In the late matchup, it will be Cavalier Roofing (4-21) taking on St. Marys Insurance (14-11).
Let’s start with the 4/5 seed scenario. If SMI wins, they will improve to 15-11 and secure the fourth seed, just ahead of Deprators Beverage (14-12). If SMI would lose, the two teams end up tied at 14-12, with Deprators Beverage holding the tiebreaker, having defeated SMI in two of their three regular-season matchups.
Now is where it gets a little more complicated. Currently, Dino’s Place holds the sixth seed, Cavalier Roofing the seventh seed, and Dream Catch holds down the final seed, eighth.
The easiest scenario, Dino’s beats Dream Catch and no matter what the outcome of the Cavalier/SMI game, then the seeds remain exactly the same as they are now.
Now, this is where it gets interesting…
Scenario 2: If Dream Catch beats Dino’s and Cavalier loses, Dream Catch is six, Dino’s seven and Cavalier eighth, as Dream Catch holds the season head to head advantage at 3-1.
Scenario 3: Dream Catch and Cavalier win, putting all three teams in a three way tie at 5-21. The first three way tiebreaker is runs against, meaning Dream Catch again would be the sixth seed, since currently they have given up 31 runs less than either Cavalier or Dino’s. The other two teams would then go to the head to head tiebreaker, giving the seventh seed again to Dino’s place, who has a 2-1 head to head advantage over Cavalier.
Confused? Maybe, but it will all come into focus during an exciting night of softball at the Robin Road Sports Complex on Monday.