6/17/2022

This was the first year that the selection committees were used to seed all team sports into the state tournaments. This process uses a mix of information from standings and scores to the RPI index to private rankings. In the end though it is a human committee that determines the seeds into each sports tournaments.

The WIAA had tested this process with football for a few years prior to the pandemic and found they were very successful in seeding with a human touch and not relying simply on data. This led to moving this process to all team sports and in 2021-22 they finally got to put that process into action for the 1st time across the board.

So that made us ask, “How’d they do?” If you read our first 3 parts you know there were big hits and some misses. Before we go any further let us say very clearly this is not a support or disapprove opinion piece but rather a look at how successful the seeding process was, are there any trends and if so are they good trends or missed trends and if so why and what do the committees need and want to do to be as accurate as possible.

We also remind everyone that seeding into tournaments, the brackets are set to have no upsets at all. These tournaments are not re-seeded after every round so when an upset occurs and they do in virtually every tournament ever, it throws a bracket into chaos. Frankly, that’s the beauty of seeded tournaments is when upsets happen and there is that chaos and our single opinion is they never change from that format.

Below are all our results that have already been posted. But now we get into our analysis of what we believe happened especially in some of those that were pretty far off.

First thing we want to note clearly and that is we do NOT have all the answers and our scoring system we used is not perfect and certainly some of the scoring could be seen as too soft or too hard depending on your perspective. We looked at our conclusions over and over and yes we made adjustments to many but at some point whether a committee received a B+ or a B is not the point. In fact, we know this is unchartered water for most of these committees and our intent frankly was not to hand out any grades under a C-. That wasn’t the case in the end but we wanted to give the committee as big a benefit of the doubt as possible as they trailblaze this new process.

The other issue we want to make clear is personally we all support this process and believe it is the best and that each of these committees will get better and will know where mistakes were made and also understand there will be times it just is going to be off a little when you do include the human element.

Our first conclusion is, and it sticks out clearly, that the sports that draw the most attention, football and basketball have been far more accurate than the other sports with the Spring sports really struggling in some areas. Football has been pretty accurate from the beginning and maybe we are learning that’s because it’s easier to know how teams all across the state truly are because of the amount of attention, the additional coverage and focus that those 2 sports receive.

Even with the huge decline in the traditional media of high school sports, football and basketball still get far more coverage than all the other sports combined. The next question is why, well from a media standpoint there is more interest from the general public in those 2 sports over the rest so in this day and age of “clicks” that is where media companies are going to push their coverage.

The general awareness helps committee members simply be more aware of what’s happening in their sport. We also believe with 7 on 7 football in the summer, the number of football camps helps coaches see other players from all over and in basketball, combine the summer basketball and AAU programs to generally a large number of non-league games played with holiday tournaments and other single day basketball showdowns such as all the MLK day 1 day showcases provide match-ups of schools from different leagues and gives a baseline to which team and or league is stronger than others.

It feels like football and basketball actually have more real data to use and draw their conclusions. That extra information appears to have a big impact on the final selections. Football had 5 #1 seeds win the state championships with the 6th going to the 2 seed against the 1 seed. Football also had 2 tournaments perfect into the semi-finals with seeds 1-2-3-4 advancing and 3 other brackets with 1-2-3-5 seeds advancing and in all 6 the 1 and 2 seeds were in the semi-finals.

In basketball on the boys side a very strange outcome was that all 6 state champions were the 2 seed. The other strange fact was their opponents in 3 tournaments was the 1 seed and in the other 3 tournaments it was the 4 seed. The boys brackets also had seeds 1-2-3 in 5 of the 6 tournament semi-finals with 1 perfect 1-2-3-4 and 4 tournaments 1-2-3-5 seeds.

On the girls side, the 6 champions were split with three 1-seeds and three 2-seeds. There were 2 brackets with 1-2-3-4 in the semi-finals and 1-2-3-5 in 2 other brackets. Only 1 tournament was really off and that was the 2A tournament that saw their #1 seed get beat in the Regional and then lose in the opening day loser out contest. But the 2 seed still won the title facing the 8 seed.

Those 3 sports were exceptionally accurate with the oddity of the 2 seed in boys hoops.

Volleyball was also pretty accurate with 4 #1 seeds winning championships and 2 #2 seeds winning the other 2. They had one major miss with a 16 seed getting into the finals and a lesser but still big miss of a 14 seed in the final 4. They had 2 tournaments with 1 vs 2 in the championship, 1 with 1 vs 3 and another 2 vs 4 and they had 2 perfect semi-finals of the 1-2-3-4 seeds all in. Overall Volleyball looked to do really well in their first go at it.

Soccer in both Fall and Spring had a tough time with the boys in the spring even tougher. The Fall tournaments including the 5 girls classifications and the B boys had 3 #1 seeds win out of 6 tournaments including the B boys which was only an 8 team tournament. The B boys had the 2 seed right and the final 4 were 1-2-3-5 seeds. They were the most accurate in all the soccer tournaments.

So the others really had some misses. In the girls they had playing in championship match a 6 seed, 7 and 8 seeds and a 13 seed. Only 2 1 seeds even made the Championship match in the 5 girls brackets. The one saving grace was the 1 seed won twice, 2 seed once and 3 seed the other two so all the girls state champions were either the 1-2 or 3 seeds.

The boys in the Spring were even tougher to figure out, not a single 1 seed made it to the Championship match. Only 1 champion was a top 4 seed and they were a 2 seed who defeated a 12 seed. Other champions were a 5-6 and 12 seed. Only 3 top 4 seeds even made it the championship. 4 double digit seeds ( 2-12 seeds and 2-14 seeds) made it to the semi-finals. Only 1 tournament had 3 of the top 4 seeds make the semi-finals with the 6 seed and the 6 won the title. The highest seed to win, the 2 seed again beat the 12 for the championship but looking at the bracket as a whole the 2 seed beat the 15 seed then the 7 then faced the 14 seed in the semi’s before beating the 12 seed for the title.

Baseball also struggled overall we felt. The 1B is only an 8 team tournament and they had 1-2-3-4 in the semi’s but the 3 beat the 4 in the Championship, still they had it pretty close to right, no issue really there. But in the other 5 16 team tournaments there were 5 double digit seeds in the final 4 with the 12 seed winning one of the tournaments. They did have 3 #1 seeds in Championship games but only 1 won. But in another tournament the 1 seed didn’t make it out of Regionals. In favor of the committees out of the 5 tournaments 4 were won by a top 4 seed.

In girls Slowpitch in the Fall the 1 seed won one of the tournaments over the 7 with the 5 and 6 advancing while in the other tournament it was the 4 vs 2 with the 4 winning and they did have the 1-2-3-4 perfect in the semi-final so a decent run for slowpitch.

Fastpitch also had more hits than errors so to speak. 4 of 6 championship games had the #1 seed but only 1 would win it all. the others lost to a 2, 3 and 6 seed. An 8 seed beat a 3 for another title and a 2 over a 5 for the other championship. Only 2 double digit seeds got into the final 4 but only 2 tournaments had 3 top 4 seeds in the semi-finals.

Some of the issues we believe the spring sports and soccer run into is a lack of cross-over play. There weren’t many instances with games being played out of their leagues and when they did it was with nearby schools. The big travel games just don’t happen as much on weekday afternoon start times. This narrows the information committees have to use to judge which teams or leagues appear to be stronger.

A great example is the SPSL/GSHL/NPSL 4A district and the Kingo league. The SPSL/GSHL/NPSL teams were seeded 2, 5, 6, 9, 10 and 14. The Kingco were seeded 4, 7, 11 and 16. The committee believed the SPSL/GSHL/NPSL district was stronger than the Kingco. In the 1st round for the SPSL/GSHL/NPSL the 2 seed lost to the 15, the 5 won, the 6 lost to the 11, the 9 won, the 10 lost to the 7 and the 14 lost to the 3. For the Kingco the 4 seed beat the 13, 7 seed beat the 10, the 11 over the 6 and the 16 lost to the #1 seed 1-0.

When there isn’t a lot of crossover play the committee is forced to make a call as to which league is stronger than the other and we see examples of this not only in soccer but in baseball where we saw Mercer Island a 12 seed in both soccer and baseball win state Championships.

Baseball has another disadvantage and that is the weather. Many schools had games cancelled they never could make up and when it comes to eliminating games all the leagues focus first on getting league games in which means many of the non-league saturday games were switched to accommodate league games. This lessened the data for the committees to consider.

Fastpitch wasn’t as far off as baseball frankly because there are many more turf fields that allow games to be played in the rain than baseball. So more league games and non-league games were played giving the selection committees more information and more comparisons they could take into consideration with the hard data they had available.

Another issue we will address is one that is simply very difficult to ever get around. That is justifying seeding a 3rd even a 4th place team in one league over a league champion in another league. We understand that human nature comes into play as does fairness even though it may be clear to most that a 3rd place team is likely better than another 1st place team, stacking multiple teams from a single league into the state tournament brackets we don’t ever see happening.  Frankly, we don’t disagree with that, there is always a question of match-ups especially in one game loser out contests and we think league champions should get some benefit.

Sports in Gyms and in stadiums also have more help than those on the baseball field and that is the large number of live video streaming happening in those facilities compared to the baseball and fastpitch fields. At least 25% of all schools now have the pixellott automated cameras so when a committee member is researching their own list they can easily find games to watch on demand and get a first hand look at those teams. It appears it could be a factor with football, basketball and volleyball. Soccer isn’t impacted as much because many of the shared stadiums are only used for football and many schools are now hosting their own varsity soccer on fields on their campus.

We’ll use Kent schools as an example, all 4 Kent District schools share French field for football but only Kent-Meridian uses it for soccer while Kentridge, Kentlake and Kentwood all play their varsity games on fields on their own campus. Many of those fields do not have electric or wifi to support live streaming on a regular basis.

So there is no question a lot more obstacles for spring sports to share their information on a statewide level. For the spring sports to be more accurate that is the hurdle they have to try and figure out.

Will we ever see a true perfect bracket, we hope NOT! We love great underdog stories, we love teams playing with a chip on their shoulder and out to prove they were overlooked, we love the imperfections of tournaments as they play out. What we do want is for those to be the anomaly and not the rule.

We believe the selection committee process is the best way to go and best way to consider as much information as possible. Some sports have clear advantages over other sports but now each committee has gone through the process and we believe each will see where they can improve and where the mistakes were made and where there was nothing they could do about it.

We hope each committee that felt they missed big now has time to look at what could be done different, how can more information be shared with the committee

If you missed any or all of our report cards on each sport and each bracket they are all below.

Fall Sports

Football

We’ll begin with the most experienced and maybe the easiest in the end with as much focus as football receives the selection committees were outstanding. 5 #1 seeds were State Champions with the 6th in the title game losing to the #2.

**Football awards 1st and 2nd, the losers of the Semi-finals are both 3rd and the losers of the quarter finals are all 5th.

4A Bracket: Graham-Kapowsin was the hot team coming in and they never cooled off as the #1 team dominated start to finish and beat #3 Lake Stevens for the Championship. The semi-finals had the 1-2-3-4 seeds perfect. And the committee was nearly perfect in the quarters as well with seeds 1-2-3-4-5-6-7 all correct but #9 beat #8 in the opening round. That and the 3 seed advancing to the Championship were the only 2 misses. Our Grade A.

3A Bracket: This bracket is the one with the biggest miss with the 3 and 4 seeds not making the semi-finals. #1 Bellevue did roll into the Championship game rather easily where they faced #6 Kennewick who defeated #3 O’Dea and #2 Eastside Catholic in the quarters and then semi’s to reach the title game. The Lions gave Bellevue all they wanted losing the title game 17-13. #5 Marysville-Pilchuck also beat #4 Yelm in the quarters so the semi-finals were 2 vs 6 and 1 vs 5. Our Grade B.

2A Bracket: The 2A committee were nearly perfect they had the 1 and 2 seeds in the Championship game, they had the top 4 seeds in the semi-finals and they had the top 7 and the 9 seed in the quarter finals. Their only misses were 2 seed Lynden beating Tumwater and #9 Enumclaw knocking out #8 Hockinson. Pretty close to perfect. Our Grade A.

1A Bracket: The 1A committee kinda has an easy time of choosing #1, no one would question just putting Royal #1 and then the rest and that’s how it worked out this year. So who would be #2? Eatonville and they earned it getting into the title game with the Knights. #3 Lynden Christian advanced to the semi’s but the committee missed barely on a perfect final 4 with #5 Kings advancing beating #4 Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) 10-7 in the quarters. The final 8 though the committee was just off with 1-7 seeds in with the 9 seed Toppenish who knocked out the 8 seed Mount Baker. Our Grade A.

2B Bracket: The 2B’s were a 12-team tournament but still missed a little which was understandable. The Central 2B remains the dominant force and in the quarterfinals 5 of the 8 teams were all from the Central 2B. Kalama was 1, Napavine 2 and they would play for the Championship with Kalama winning. But Onalaska was the 5 seed and they beat the 12 in the 1st round 62-8 and then the 4 seed who had a bye 54-15. Forks the 10 seed beat the 7 35-20 and Toledo was the 9 and we saw yet another 9 defeat the 8. The final 4 was the 1-2-3-5, had Ony been the 4 seed they would have been perfect but that meant putting 3 teams in the top 4 from 1 league that will always be difficult for any committee to do. Our Grade A-.

1B Bracket: The 1B committee we will start by saying they nailed the 8-9 seeds as the only classification’s 8 seed that beat the 9. They also had the 1 targeted in Almira-Coulee-Hartline. But #3 Quilcene knocked out #2 Odessa in the semi’s and #5 Naselle defeated #4 Pomeroy in the quarters. The other upset was #11 Winlock beating #6 DeSales in the opening round. Our Grade: B+

Overall Football Grade: A-

Now we begin all the other sports who were doing this for the 1st time. You can see Football’s experience and understanding of how the committees work has them down the road a bit. The rest of the year there are hits and misses as you will see within each sport.

Volleyball

**In Volleyball they award trophies 1st through 8th place.

4A Bracket: The committee did hit seeds 1-2-3-4-5 all in the trophy round with 1 seed Bothell beating the 2 seed Curtis for the Championship. The quarterfinals we saw both the 11 and 14 seeds in and was the only tournament with 2 double digit seeds in the quarters. #4 Graham-Kapowsin took 3rd over 4th place 14 seeded West Valley of Yakima. #5 Camas was 5th, #11 Mount Rainier 6th while the 3 seed Lake Stevens was 7th and 9 seed Olympia 8th. The biggest miss was #14 West Valley getting into the semi-finals. Our Grade B.

3A Bracket: The selection committee was dealt a huge blow early when the #1 seed Lakeside was stunned by #8 Auburn Riverside in the quarters. Lakeside then lost in the consolation and did not trophy. But in the quarters they did have seeds 1-2-3-4-5-7-8 and 11 still alive for the top trophy. The semi-finals were the 2-3-4 and 8 seeds with #4 Mead beating #2 Peninsula for the Championship. #3 Ferndale took 3rd, #8 Auburn Riverside was 4th, 5 seed Mt Spokane 5th, the 11 seed Arlington 6th, 12 seeded Kelso 7th and 6 seed Bishop Blanchet 8th. Our Grade B-.

2A Bracket: The 2A was perfect into the semi-finals with the 1-2-3-4 seeds all in and advancing was 1 seed Columbia River and 3 seed Ridgefield with Columbia River winning. We don’t ding the committee in this case because the two teams are in the same league and same district so it’s hard to justify a 2 seed to a non league or district champion, in fact we give them credit for putting the 2nd team as high as they did at #3 in a 16 team tournament. #2 Steilacoom took 3rd over #4 Burlington-Edison. The committee was solid over all with the 7 seed White River taking 5th, #9 Anacortes 6th with the outsiders sneaking in the 7th/8th place match and #16 Mark Morris finishing 7th with #11 Enumclaw 8th. Our Grade B+, having the 16 seed trophy kept them from an A-.

1A Bracket: The committee had a rough debut at the 1A level with not only a 16 seed knocking off the 1 seed in the 1st match but that 16 seed making it to the Championship. The 11 and 13 seeds also made it to the trophy round. But the committee overall in the quarterfinals wasn’t off but the big miss at #1 with the 2-7 and the 16 seeds all in position to win the Championship. #2 Chelan did beat #16 L-C for the title, #6 Meridian knocked off #4 Annie Wright for 3rd place, #8 Freeman was 5th, #7 Lakeside (Nine Mile Falls) 6th with #11 Charles Wright 7th and #13 Seattle Academy 8th. Our Grade C-.

2B Bracket: The committee did right with the 1 seed but missed on the 2-3-4 in the semi-finals. However in the quarters they were strong with the 1 thru 7 seeds and the 9 seed, almost perfect but then the 2-3-4 seeds all lost in the quarters. 1 seed La Conner took it all beating #6 Walla Walla Academy for the title. #5 Manson was 3rd over #7 Raymond, #2 Colfax was 5th, 4 seed Goldendale 6th and the 13 seed Liberty (Spangle) beat 11 seeded Adna Pirates for 7th. Our Grade B-.

1B Bracket: Even though only a 12-team tournament, the 1B’s were the most successful with a perfect quarterfinal of seeds 1 thru 8 into a perfect semi-final seeds 1 thru 4 and a perfect 1st thru 4th placing with #1 Oakesdale as Champion, #2 Mossyrock 2nd, 3rd #3 St John Endicott-LaCrosse and 4th #4 Odessa. The consolation bracket saw a few upsets with #8 Naselle 5th over #7 Mary Walker and #9 Pomeroy took 7th with #15 Shoreline Christian taking 8th. Our Grade A.

Overall Volleyball Grade: B

Girls and “B” Boys Soccer

**Soccer awards trophies 1st thru 4th and quarterfinal losing teams are listed as 5th place.

Girls

4A Bracket: This committee was our 2nd most accurate on our point system but still some misses including the 6 seed in the Championship match. The quarterfinals had the 1 thru 8  except the 12 seed beat the 5 seed. Moving on to the semi-finals were the 1-2-4 and 6 seeds with #1 Camas beating the 6 seeded Issaquah Eagles. #2 Richland took 3rd over #4 Skyline. Losing the 3 seed in the quarters and the #2 in the semi’s knocked down the grade. Our Grade B.

3A Bracket: The committee did pretty well in the final 4 with the 1-2-3 seeds all in but a glaring miss was #13 Seattle Prep who not only made it to the final 4 they advanced to the Championship match against #3 Lakeside (Seattle) where their magical run ran out of steam settling for 2nd. The 2 seed Holy Names beat #1 Gig Harbor in the 3rd/4th place match. In the quarterfinals 2 other misses with the 9 and the 11 seeds joining #13 seattle Prep in the final 8. It was a hit and miss bracket. Our Grade C.

2A Bracket: The 2A committee scored the highest with seeds 1 thru 7 and the 9 seed in the quarterfinals just missing a perfect run. But a few upsets led to the 5 and 7 seeds advancing to the semi-finals and #1 Archbishop Murphy playing #7 Hockinson for the Championship with the Wildcats winning. #5 Columbia River defeated #3 Ridgefield for 3rd. We also give the committee a little more latitude in this bracket with Hockinson, Ridgefield and Columbia River all coming from the GSHL 2A. It is tough to stack teams from the same league in tournament seeding. Our Grade: B.

1A Bracket: The committee scored 2nd lowest in our overall point system despite doing well in the final 4 getting the 1-3-4 seeds in with the 7 seed. Two things worked against the committee is the 3 and 4 played for the title with #3 Deer Park winning it all and #4 Seattle Academy 2nd while #1 Klahowya took 3rd over #7 Montesano. The bigger problem was in the final 8 with the 9, 12 and 15 seeds all making the quarterfinals. #15 Tenino knocked out the 2 seed and #12 The Bush School eliminated the 5 seed. Our Grade C.

2B/1B Bracket: This committee had just 12 teams to work with and struggled with their 1 and 4 seeds getting knocked out in the quarterfinals. Additionally, #11 Reardan beat the 6 seed to get to the quarters. In the final 4 seeds 2 and 3 battled with Kalama the 2 seed advancing to the Championship and in the other semi-final the 5 and 8 seeds played with 8 seed Adna getting to the title game. #2 Kalama won the Title, #8 Adna was 2nd while #3 Highland finished 3rd and #5 Toledo settled for 4th.  Our Grade C+.

Boys

2B/1B Bracket: The committee only had 8 teams to deal with but they did it nearly perfectly. In the opening round only the 4 seed was upset with Friday Harbor defeating Prescott. The Final 4 were the 1-2-3 and 5 seeds and that’s how they finished with 1 seed Orcas Island winning the Championship, #2 Providence Classical Christian 2nd, #3 Crosspoint 3rd and 5th seeded Friday Harbor 4th. Our Grade A.

Overall Fall Soccer Grade: B-
Overall Girls Soccer Grade: C+
**We will include the B boys grade in with the other boys tournaments that are in the spring for an overall boys grade as well.

Slowpitch

**Slowpitch awards 1st thru 4th with quarterfinal losers placing 5th.

4A Bracket: This is an 8 team bracket and although they got the Champion correct but just barely, they missed on the 2-3-4 seeds. #1 Chiawana defeated the 7 seed 13-12 for the Championship while #5 West Valley of Yakima took 3rd over #8 Battle Ground. The Semi-Finals out of 8 teams were 1-5-6-7. Our Grade C.

3A/2A Bracket: Also an 8 team bracket and the committee was perfect with the top 4 advancing to the semi-finals and the 5 and 6 seeds winning in the consolation. But they had the seeds upside down for the final 4 with 4 seed University winning the State Championship over #2 Kelso while #1 Mt Spokane did beat 3 seed Hermiston for 3rd place. Our Grade: B.

Overall Slowpitch Grade: B-

Winter Sports

Girls Basketball

**Girls Basketball awards trophies to 6th place the two losing teams in the consolation would be considered 7th place finishes. Also the teams play for 3rd or 5th place in one of the consolation games and the other game is for 4th and 6th. So 5th place teams actually lost to the 3rd place team.

4A Bracket: The 4A committee tied for 1st as the highest in our accuracy scoring of all the girls tournaments with #1 Woodinville winning the Championship by beating #2 Sumner. The final 4 was nearly perfect with the 1-2-3 and 5 seeds. They also faired well in the quarters with seeds 1-7 and the 9 seed all in the final 8. The final trophy count was 1 seed 1st, 2 seed 2nd, 3rd seeded Pasco 3rd, 9th ranked Camas 4th, 5 seed Eastlake 5th and 7 seed Richland 6th with the 4 seed Lake Stevens and 6 seeded Emerald Ridge losing in the consolations. Our Grade A.

3A Bracket: This committee was solid in their 1st time at it. They weren’t that far off with having the 1 thru 4 seeds all in the semi-finals perfect. But 4 seeded Lake Washington beat #1 Mead to advance to the Championship where the Kangaroos faced #2 Garfield. The Bulldogs advanced to the title tilt knocking off #3 Arlington. #2 Garfield then pulled out an exciting 1 point win over Lake Washington. #3 Arlington then handled a disappointed Mead squad for 3rd while Mead took 5th. In the quarters is where there were some issues for the 3A committee with #14 Hermiston making it into the top 8, along with #9 Lakeside. #5 Snohomish would finish 4th and #7 Stanwood took 6th with the 9 and 14 seed losing in those consolations. Our Grade B+.

2A Bracket: This was not a good start for the 2A bracket committee as their #1 seed Tumwater lost to 8 seeded Burlington-Edison and got knocked into the 1st day loser out games at the SunDome. There Tumwater again stumbled badly losing to #9 West Valley (Spokane) and the #1 seed was out in a shockingly quick exit. The quarterfinals had seeds 2-3-4-5-7-8-9 and 11. 2 seed Ellensburg beat 4 seed WF West in one semi and #8 Burlington-Edison made it to the Championship game against the Bulldogs by beating the 11 seed Prosser. So the final trophy run was #2 Ellensburg Champs, #8 B-E 2nd, #11 Prosser 3rd, #5 Archbishop Murphy 4th, #4 WF West 5th and #3 Hudson’s Bay 6th with #7 Washougal and #9 West Valley Spokane losing in the consolations. Our Grade C-.

1A Bracket: The 1A committee nearly had a perfect run with the 1 thru 7 and 9 seeds all advancing into the quarterfinals and the 1 thru 4 seeds into the semi-finals and that’s how they finished with 1 seed Lynden Christian the Champions, #2 Nooksack Valley 2nd, 3rd seed Cashmere 3rd and 4 seed Montesano 5th place. 4th place went to #9 Wapato and #6 Freeman settled for 6th with 7 seed Colville and 5 seed Zillah lost in the consolation round. Our Grade A. (very close to the elusive A+)

2B Bracket: An upset in the Regionals threw off the 2B bracket a little bit but they were pretty darn accurate. #2 Warden lost in the Regional and had to play on the loser day 1 but win. In this case it forced Warden to face #1 La Conner in the quarterfinals and Warden pulled the upset over the #1 team. In the quarters the committee did what no other committee did and that was to get 1 thru 8 in the quarterfinals but not in the order as you would expect because the 1 and 2 seeds met each other due to Warden’s loss in the Regionals. Warden then upset #1 La Conner and went on to win the Championship beating #3 Colfax. The 4 seed Okanogan took 3rd knocking off #7 Liberty (Spangle) who took home 5th place. The 1 seed La Conner bounced back with 2 straight wins for 4th place and #5 Raymond was 6th while #6 Lake Roosevelt and #8 Chief Leschi were defeated in the consolation round. Our Grade A-.

1B Bracket: The 1B committee did pretty well with the 1-2-3 and 5 seeds in the final 4 and the 1 seed Mount Vernon Christian beating the 3 seed Neah Bay for the Championship. 5th seed Garfield-Palouse knocked off 2 seeded Colton for 3rd while Colton took the 5th place trophy. #8 Pomeroy beat #6 Mossyrock for 4th and the Vikings took 6th. The slip up for this committee was the final 8 where 10 seed Naselle advanced to the final 8. In the consolation 8 seeded Pomeroy defeated #4 Wilbur-Creston-Keller knocking them out of the tournament on day 3. Our Grade B+.

Overall Girls Basketball Grade: B+

Boys Basketball

**Boys Basketball awards trophies to 6th place the two losing teams in the consolation would be considered 7th place finishes. Also the teams play for 3rd or 5th place in one of the consolation games and the other game is for 4th and 6th. So 5th place teams actually lost to the 3rd place team.

This is just to strange not to point out going in, there will be no A+ grades in boys basketball. All 6 committees were close with their State Champion but all 6 missed by 1. Yes, all 6 boys state champs were the 2 seed.

4A Bracket: The first 2 seed to win it all for the boys was Curtis. The 4A committee was pretty good with one big miss and that was the 11 seed Olympia Bears who ended up 3rd. The top 8 were perfect 1 thru 5 with the 8 seed but then Olympia at 11 and Graham-Kapowsin the 15 seed was in the top 8. In the semi’s were 1 Mount Si, 2 Curtis and the 3 seed Union with Olympia. So the final count was 2 seed Curtis Champions, 1 seed Mt Si 2nd, 11 seed Olympia 3rd, 3 seed Union 5th, #4 Kamiakin 4th and 5th seed Tahoma 6th. #8 Gonzaga Prep and 15 seed G-K both lost in the consolation. Our Grade B.

3A Bracket: #2 seed Auburn threw this whole bracket out of whack by losing in the Regional and then winning the opening day loser out game setting up a quarterfinal match-up with #1 Garfield. Also in the quarterfinals were the 4-5-6-7 seeds along with the 9 and 14. Advancing to the semi-finals the 2 seed Auburn and #4 Rainier Beach made it but the 1 Garfield and 3 seed O’Dea were knocked out on day 2 by #14 Eastside Catholic. In the end 2nd ranked Auburn won it all while the 4 seed Rainier Beach was 2nd, 5th seeded Seattle Prep was 3rd, 7 seed Mt Spokane 5th while Garfield finished strong taking the 4th place trophy and #9 Mountlake Terrace was 6th. Eastside Catholic and #6 Gig Harbor were knocked out on day 3 in the consolation. Our Grade C+.

2A Bracket: The 2A committee struggled a little bit of course missing with #1 seed North Kitsap but the Vikings did take 3rd but it was #14 Prosser that got into the top 8 as their biggest issue. They also missed on their 5 and 6 seeds who did not get into the top 8. But they were pretty good with seeds 1 thru 4 all making the semi-finals. #4 Pullman pulled the shocker knocking off North Kitsap and #2 Lynden beat #3 R A Long and would go on to win it all. R A Long would finish 5th with 5 seed Tumwater getting 4th and 7 seed Port Angeles 6th. Prosser and #8 Sehome both lost in the consolation. Our Grade B+.

1A Bracket: The 1A did very well with 1 thru 8 seeds all in the quarterfinals and the 1-2-3-5 seeds in the semi-finals. It was 2 seed Lynden Christian vs top seed King’s for the Championship and the Lyncs won it. #3 Life Christian beat the 5 seed Toppenish for 3rd and Toppenish was 5th. 4th ranked Freeman defeated Zillah for 4th and Zillah ended up 6th. #7 Annie Wright and #8 Quincy both were eliminated on day 3 in the consolations. The 1A boys committee were the one and only committee with 1 thru 6 all winning trophies. But just one out of order which was for the Championship, so no A+ (For an A+ you don’t have to be absolutely perfect but we do believe the A+ must have the right Champion, that’s how close there were and btw the final score was 61-58.) Our Grade A.

2B Bracket: The 2B committee did well at the top of the rankings but the mid numbers they missed hard. The 1 thru 5 seeds all made it to the quarterfinals but the other 3 were the 9-10-11 seeds. In the semi’s it was 1 seed Kalama vs 4th ranked Brewster and the Bears won knocking off the 1 seed. #2 Liberty (Spangle) beat 5th seed Morton-White Pass and went on to win the Title with Brewster taking 2nd. #1 Kalama finished 3rd while 5th seed M-WP was 5th. #3 Colfax took 4th and the 10th seeded Columbia (Burbank) team trophied with 6th place while the 9 Lake Roosevelt and 11th seeded Toutle Lake lost in the consolation. Our Grade B-.

1B Bracket: The 1B committee much like their counterparts in the 1A classification had it perfect in the quarterfinals with 1 thru 8, but missed in the semi-finals as 3 seed Northwest Yeshiva lost in the Regionals and then ended up facing 4th ranked Willapa Valley in the quarters which made it impossible to have 1 thru 4 in the semi’s. 2nd ranked Cusick defeated #1 Almira-Coulee-Hartline for the Championship and A-C-H was 2nd. 5 seed Sunnyside Christian took 3rd over 3 seed NW Yeshiva and 7 seed Lummi Nation took 4th with a win over 6th ranked Moses Lake Christian. 4th seed Willapa Valley and #8 DeSales were both knocked out on day 3. Our Grade A-.

Overall Boys Basketball Grade: B

Spring Sports

As we work through the Spring sports it is clear there are difficulties for each committee as by far they had more misses in all sports nearly, if not combining Fall and Winter sports. We will analyze why in our final combined report on Friday.

Boys Soccer

**Soccer awards trophies 1st thru 4th and quarterfinal losing teams are listed as 5th place.

4A Bracket: The committee struggled but not as bad as others. When you begin with a Championship final between the 5 and 7 seeds you know you missed somewhere. The final 8 in the quarterfinals were the 1-3-4-5-7-9-11 and 15. Only 3 of your top 4 made it to the quarters and that was knocked down to 2 in the semi-finals with the 1-3-5-7 advancing but #5 Bellarmine beat #1 Pasco and #7 Skyline got by #3 Wenatchee. Both were 1 goal wins and Bellarmine won in a shoot-out. The Lions would then defeat the 7 Skyline 1-0 for the Championship while Pasco edged Wenatchee for 3rd 2-1. The other quarterfinalists that advanced were #11 Issaquah who defeated #6 Puyallup, #15 Kamiak knocked out #2 Union, #4 Newport lost to Bellarmine Prep and #9 lost to Pasco. Our Grade C-.

3A Bracket: The 3A committee has to see where things went wrong. They missed big. In the final 8 seeds 10-11-12-14 and 16 all advanced with only 2 seed Lakeside and 4 seeded Lincoln (Seattle) in the final 8 from your top 4. #8 Monroe rounded out the final 8. It didn’t get better into the semi’s with #2 Lakeside moving forward with #8 Monroe but also advancing were #12 Mercer Island and #14 O’Dea. Lakeside would beat O’Dea 2-1 in OT and #12 Mercer Island knocked off #8 Monroe. Then in stunning fashion #12 Mercer Island beat #2 Lakeside for the Championship. #8 Monroe did beat #14 O’Dea for 3rd. The other quarterfinalists included #11 Hazen, #10 Peninsula and #16 Seattle Prep. Our Grade D.

2A Bracket: The 2A committee was by far the most successful, although they also missed in the finals. #6 Squalicum rolled through the tournament with a 4-0 win over #11 Fife, 2-0 over #3 East Valley (Yakima), beat #2 Sammamish in the semi’s 3-2 in OT and hammered #4 Burlington-Edison in the Championship 5-0. B-E advanced to the Title match upsetting #1 Columbia River in the semi’s 1-0 in PK’s. But the 2A committee is the only 1 with 3 of their top 4 seeds advancing to the semi-finals but they did have those upside down with the 6 seed meeting the 4 seed for the Title and the 1 vs 2 for 3rd which #1 Columbia River did win beating #2 Sammamish 1-0. The other quarterfinalists did not help the committee with 2 double digit seeds advancing in #10 Franklin Pierce and #12 Tumwater. But #9 Othello also made the final 8. Our Grade B-.

1A Bracket: The 1A committee did have the honor of having the highest seed win the 2 seed The Bush School. But after that not much to note that went right. The quarterfinals weren’t as bad as the 3A bracket with seeds 1-2-4-6-7-9-12 and 14. However, that’s were it fell apart with #14 Seattle Academy beating the 6 seed, #2 The Bush School did beat #7 Lakeside but #12 University Prep knocked out #4 Cascade (Leavenworth) and #9 Highland stunned #1 Toppenish to end their season advancing the 2-9-12 and 14 seeds to the final 4. Bush did beat #14 Seattle Academy 1-0 and blanked #12 University Prep 4-0 for the Title. #9 Highland beat #14 Seattle Academy for 3rd. Our Grade C-.

Overall Spring Boys Soccer Grade: C-

Overall Boys Soccer Grade including the 2B/1B bracket from the Fall season: C

Fastpitch

**Fastpitch awards trophies 1st thru 4th but the 2 consolation rounds of loser out games does give us a final 8 and final 6.

4A Bracket: The 4A committee scored right in the middle of our rating system and the biggest disruption was having their #1 seed Kentwood win their opener but lose in the quarters to #8 Redmond and then drop their loser out game 21-1 to 11 seed Mt Si. But outside of that they advanced the 2-3-4 and 8 seeds to the final 4. The other problem was again Redmond the 8 who went on to beat #4 Puyallup in the semi’s and then won the Championship defeating #3 Skyview. Skyview advanced with a 4-3 win in the semi’s over #2 Jackson. #6 Battle Ground took 3rd beating 5th seeded Skyline while #2 Jackson and #4 Puyallup were eliminated in the 2nd consolation and shared 5th place while #11 Mt Si and #10 Kamiakin were ousted in the 1st consolation but made the top 8. Our Grade B.

3A Bracket: The 3A bracket is an oddity and much like the final decision in seeding these brackets the final decisions come from humans and can take things into account that raw data can not. So in fact the 3A committee in our scoring system did worse than the 4A committee but we are going to give them a higher grade. Let us explain, yes the 3A had more double digit seeds advance through the consolation bracket which drove up their scores but the heart of the matter is getting the Championship correct first and then go from there. The 3A with a 20 team tournament and in a driving rainstorm both days in Lacey had seeds 1-2-3 and 5 in the semi-finals and the 1 faced the 2 in the Championship. 2nd seed Lake Washington did beat #1 Walla Walla for 1st  but then 3 seed Roosevelt and 5 seed Bonney Lake both won a loser out consolation to play-off for 3rd in which 3rd seed Roosevelt won. The chink in the armour was the 13 seed Monroe and the 15 Auburn Riverside both advanced to the final 6. We took all of that into consideration and understand no systems are perfect. Our Grade B+, if #1 had won it, they would have gotten an A.

2A Bracket: The 2A Bracket had an interesting run in their 1st time at it and it was really good in some cases with seeds 1-2-3 all winning trophies but missing mightily in the mid seeds except #6 Tumwater who won the whole thing, so apparently missing a bit on the T-Birds. In the quarters seeds 1-2-3-6-7-8 and 12 and 13 who faced each other as #12 Lakewood beat #5 Fife and #13 Ellensburg beat #4 Shadle Park. Lakewood would be E-Burg and advance to the final 4. #6 Tumwater knocked off #3 Lynden to advance and face #2 WF West who beat #7 Olympic. Tumwater beat WF West to get to the Championship and faced #1 Othello who beat #8 Port Angeles. Tumwater would win the Title handily 13-3. Both WF West and Lynden avoided further upsets as they knocked out #14 Rochester and #12 Lakewood who would both finish in the top 6 as WF West took 3rd and Lynden 4th. Our Grade B.

1A Bracket: The 1A committee had a good 1st effort although a 12 team bracket but really no big misses. Seeds 1 thru 8 all made the quarters which meant they had it right 9-12, the 4 teams who lost their 1st round loser-out play-in game. But after that it was a little off. 1 seed Eatonville did make the semi’s along with 2 seed Nooksack Valley but 5 seed Lakeside (9 Mile Falls) knocked off 4 seed Freeman and 6 seeded Mount Baker over #3 College Place. #5 Lakeside then beat #1 Eatonville and faced #2 Nooksack Valley for the Championship. The Pioneers then beat Lakeside 4-3 for the title. Meantime, the 3 and the 4 lost in their loser out consolation advancing 7 seed Hoquiam and 8 seed Castle Rock but both lost to Mount Baker and Eatonville and the Cruisers ended up 3rd. Our Grade B.

2B Bracket: The committee was definitely hot and cold. They did well to just miss in the Championship game with 1 seed Adna facing 3 seed Pe Ell-Willapa Valley but PWV rolled to an 11-0 Championship win. To start with they missed on 2 play-in seeds as 10 seed Rainier and 11 seeded Toledo both won their loser out games to advance to the quarterfinals. Rainier then hammered #2 Warden to get to the semi-finals while Toledo lost to PWV. #5 Colfax beat 4th seed Lake Roosevelt and Adna advanced with awin over #8 Forks. Toledo then beat 2 seed Warden in the consolation to eliminate them and #8 Forks handed Lake Roosevelt their 2nd loss ending their season. Forks would get to the 3rd place game and the 8 seed beat #5 Colfax for 3rd place. Our Grade B-.

1B Bracket: The 1B was at an advantage with only an 8 team tournament but was perfect after the 1st round with 1 thru 4 in the semi-finals. They were also only 1 of 5 committees in the Spring to get their 1 and 2 seeds into the Championship game and only 1 of 2 committees to have it right as #1 seed Liberty Christian beat #2 Colton 4-1. There was a little hiccup in the consolation as #5 Naselle beat #8 Darrington then knocked off #3 Inchelium to get into the 3rd place game where they lost to the 4 seed DeSales. In the end seeds 1-2-4-5 all took home trophies in that order. Our Grade A-.

Overall Fastpitch Grade: B

Baseball

**Baseball awards trophies 1st thru 4th with losers in the Regional finals finishing 5th.

4A Bracket: The 4A committee was spot on with the Championship game and it couldn’t have been more perfect with #1 Olympia winning it in walk-off fashion over #2 Puyallup 7-6. But the committee did have a glaring miss with #14 Skyline who beat #3 in the 1st round of regionals then knocked off #11 Sumner who had beat 6 seed Kamiakin and Skyline was in the final 4. Other than that 1 regional they had it perfect and #4 Richland did beat Skyline for 3rd. Overall a solid performance with just the single Regional that was missed and was only 1 of 2 committees in the Spring to have their 1 and 2 perfect. Our Grade A-.

3A Bracket: The 3A bracket had the 2nd toughest time and was hot and cold. The Final 4 sums it up perfectly with 1 seed West Seattle and 3 seed Kennewick in the semi-finals but with 10 seed Mt Spokane and 12 seed Mercer Island. Mercer Island must feel severely disrespected as they rolled through the bracket beating 5 seed Bainbridge in the Regionals, then #4 Auburn in the quarters, then beat #1 West Seattle and won it all knocking off 3 seed Kennewick. But in the 3rd place game #10 Mt Spokane handled top seeded West Seattle 5-1 for the 3rd place trophy. Our Grade C-.

2A Bracket: The 2A Bracket in the end didn’t look quite as bad as it could have been with the 2-3-4-9 seeds in the final 4. But it was a case of the haves and have nots with the 5-10-11 and 16 in the quarterfinals. Only the Regional where #4 Tumwater defeated 5 seed Ephrata had it right the other 3 Regionals were blown up starting with #16 White River stunning the committee’s 1 seed North Kitsap 5-1 to end the Vikings season. 10 seed Archbishop Murphy knocked out the 7 seed #11 Enumclaw eliminated the 6. But they recovered well in the regional finals with all the remaining highest seeds winning. #4 Tumwater beat #2 Columbia River for the Championship and #9 WF West took 3rd over 3 seeded Ellensburg. Our Grade B.

1A Bracket: The 1A committee did quite well with the 1-2-3 all in the semi-finals with one big miss with 12 seed University Prep who advanced to the final 4 knocking off the 4 and 5 seeds. 1 seed Cedar Park Christian would then get the hot U-P in the semi’s and they just missed with their 3rd straight upset losing to the 1 seed 7-6. #2 Bellevue Christian had to neat the 10 seed Royal in the Regional Championship and did so then topped #3 Chelan to face #1 CPC. Bellevue Christian got the win and #12 University Prep bounced back with a win of 3 seed Chelan for 3rd. Our Grade B+ (had the 1 beat the 2 they would have gotten an A-)

2B Bracket: The committee was like several of the others with getting it correct 75% in Regionals and having just 1 glaring oversight. The were the 3rd committee to correctly seed 1 and 2 into the championship but they were 1 of 2 committees who had it reversed as the 2 seed Brewster topped 1 seed Toutle Lake 7-6. 3 seed Jenkins (Chewelah) also made the final 4 and finished 3rd so the 2B committee’s 1-2-3 seeds took home the top 3 trophies just not in exact order. It was 13 seed Colfax who was the outlayer as they surprised #4 Napavine in the opening round of Regionals and then beat #5 NW Christian (Colbert) to get into the final 4. A couple of other minor misses as 9 seed Forks beat the 8 and #11 Okanogan over the 6 but neither could get to the top 4. Our Grade B+ (again if #1 wins then A- but a double digit seed in the final 4 is tough to overcome.)

1B Bracket: The 1B tournament was a 12 team tourney and the committee was perfect through 2 rounds with seeds 9 thru 12 all losing in the play-in loser out 1st round. Then in the quarters the 1 thru 4 seeds all made it to the semi-finals and it looked like maybe a perfect bracket was on the way but no. They had the top four completely backwards as 3 seed Nasell defeated #2 Almira-Coulee-Hartline 15-10 and #4 Crosspoint knocked out #1 DeSales 10-7. Naselle won the Championship 5-3. Our Grade B+.

Overall Baseball Grade: B-

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