Early 1/2/3A Playoffs

By Damian Hall 04/20/2017

There are ONLY 8 competition days left in the season. Even with that being the case, this still feels a little early to be putting out there as there are many games that have critical impact on how the playoff picture could shape up. In addition, not all games have been updated in MaxPreps which is the schedule we are using because it is the schedule the NCHSAA will use.

First let us take a look, as briefly as possible, at the one-time pilot system the NCHSAA has put into place for 2017 which for the 4A bracket for lacrosse will have 40 participants. The participants are broken down into three tiers as follows:

  • Tier 1: Regular season champions get an automatic qualifier (for split conferences the best of each split will get an AQ)
  • Tier 2: Winners of conference tournaments get an AQ (This is not an issue for most lacrosse conferences, still working to verify all of them)
  • Tier 3: At large bids based on win percentage that will fill the remaining spots available after the first two tiers

So what does this mean for the 1/2/3A bracket? Simply put, there are 8 AQs that will be given out to conference champions. The remaining 16 spots will go to at-large teams with the best winning percentage.

There is a lot more that goes along with this, and I have included the NCHSAA video explaining some of the finer points at the bottom of this article.

Not going to get into the seeding or regional split with this article, we will look at that more closely next week when the water is a little less muddy. Below see who we think is in and who is on the bubble.

Conference Leaders (as of 4/19/2017)

Here are the conference leaders at the start of Wednesday. There are some pivotal head-to-head match-ups left to be played:

  • Topsail
  • First Flight
  • Cedar Ridge
  • E. Alamance
  • West Stokes/W.Guilford
  • Lake Norman Charter
  • Weddington
  • St. Stephan's

At-Large (as of 4/19/2017)

The teams listed below have not been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.

  • Orange
  • Carborro
  • Chapel Hill
  • N. Guilford
  • Cuthbertson
  • Northwood
  • Marvin Ridge
  • Northside-Jacksonville
  • Asheboro
  • Pinecrest
  • Hickory
  • W. Alamance
  • WM Williams
  • Bishop McGuinness
  • N. Davidson
  • Voyager Academy
  • Jacksonville

I don't claim these are perfect, by any means. There is a lot of incomplete data out there, but I'm doing the best with what I've got. Check the video below for more information.

NCHSAA Seeding Video 2016-17 from NCHSAA on Vimeo.

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