According to Greencastle-Antrim skipper Eric Shaner, his Blue Devils, champions of the Mid-Penn Colonial Division, are preparing to challenge Commonwealth champ State College in the semifinal round of the Mid-Penn Baseball Tournament on Wednesday.
That indeed may be the case. Then again.
First, the good news. The Blue Devils (16-2, 11-1), Capital rep Susquenita (14-4, 12-2) and Keystone champion Lower Dauphin (16-3, 14-0) are locked into the one-day event that will split the semifinal rounds between Cumberland Valley High School and Northern.
The semifinal winners at 4 p.m. will meet in Dillsburg for a 7 p.m. finale under the lights.
But in case conference officials have missed something, the Commonwealth Division is still unsettled with Cumberland Valley (13-7, 11-5) and the Little Lions (13-4, 11-4) at the top. That puts a valuable price tag on Central Dauphin's trek to State College today.
However, should the Rams upend State College, the Little Lions would not only share the division title with Cumberland Valley, it would open a series of questions on how the MPC determines which franchise – both are worthy, of course – gets to represent the Commonwealth in the champions-only tournament.
According to a handout administered to all coaches, the tiebreaker moves from head-to-head record straight to a team's District 3 power rating. That's where it gets messy. CV and State College split a pair of games during the regular season, and the Little Lions qualify under a vastly different set of power-rating standards in District 6.
According to Bob Baker, who calculates power ratings for District 3 baseball, State College does not own a current PR number under “our” formula which attaches 55-percent to a team's weighted winning percentage and 45-percent to their opponent's weighted winning percentage.
And while it's conceivable that State College's PR number would still rank ahead of Cumberland Valley's, even with a loss against Central Dauphin today, shouldn't the MPC take the time to at least ask Baker if he would crunch the numbers?
Maybe the Little Lions end the discussion with a resounding victory today. But conference officials should have formulated such a contingency plan based on State College's second-place finish a season ago. Another option is to stop using a district standard when it comes to qualifying teams for a conference or league tournament.
Coincidentally, had the second tiebreaker been record vs. division opponents top-to-bottom – a routine standard – the Eagles, assuming a State College loss vs. Central Dauphin, would enter the MPC Tournament via their 2-0 mark against third-place Cedar Cliff.