The spring playoffs are steadily approaching for Polk County teams.
The first bracket of the season, in fact, will be released Friday when the boys tennis pairings are announced.
Polk County High baseball, softball, girls soccer and boys tennis teams will advance to playoff competition based on their RPI rating. As a reminder:
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- In most team sports, 48 schools will qualify for the playoffs. Qualification will be determined solely by the MaxPreps RPI rating used by the NCHSAA. Note that this is not the rating on MaxPreps’ website, but the rankings on nchsaa.org. There is a diference, and you cannot use the numbers on maxpreps.com to get accurate ratings.
- Once the 48 qualifiers are known, they’ll be divided into 24 schools each in the East and West brackets. Where a school falls is not predetermined as in recent years – the 24 westernmost schools based on longitude will be in the West, with the rest in the East.
- Once the 24 schools are in each bracket, they’ll be ranked 1-24 and that will determine byes and pairings. The top eight schools in each bracket will receive a first-round bye.
Here is a look at where schools in those four sports currently sit heading into Monday. These are not projected pairings and can change daily as the postseason approaches.
BASEBALL
Polk County has climbed to 17th in the state 3A ratings. That gives them the 8th seed in the 3A West field at present.
The 8th spot would mean a first-round bye, then a home game against the winner or No. 9 West Davidson and No. 24 West Caldwell.
The Wolverines also still own a two-game lead over Madison in the Western Highlands Conference standings. The Patriots close their WHC schedule this week with a two-game series against Mitchell while Polk has a home-and-home against Avery this week and another next week with Hendersonville.
Polk also has a non-conference home date Wednesday with Burns, currently ranked fifth in the state 4A ratings.
SOFTBALL
Polk County currently sits 58th in the state 3A ratings, 10 spots out of a postseason berth.
All is not lost.
The Wolverines have five games remaining, with two against 2-12 Hendersonville, two against 1-13 Avery and one against 7-10 North Henderson. It’s a longshot, but sweeping those five games might be enough to push Polk County into the top 48 and the 3A playoffs.
There are a lot of ifs involved, but the point remains that the postseason is not totally out of reach for Polk – a small winning streak to end the season might be enough to yield that reward.
GIRLS SOCCER
Polk County’s loss Friday to East Henderson dropped the Wolverines a couple of spots in the 3A ratings. The Wolverines now sit 7th in the state, which places them fifth in the 3A West rankings.
In that fifth slot, Polk would get a first-round bye and then host the winner of No. 12 West Lincoln vs. No. 20 Shelby.
Hendersonville currently holds the top spot in the 3A West RPI but trails Polk County by a half-game in the Western Highlands Conference standings. The two teams meet again May 4 in Hendersonville.
BOYS TENNIS
The regular season ends this week for Polk County as the Wolverines travel to Madison on Wednesday.
Polk currently sits 17th in the 3A state ratings, which looks like it would put the Wolverines in the 9th seed in the 3A West bracket no matter how the 43 qualifying teams are split. That would mean a first-round bye and then a trip to No. 8 North Wilkes in the second round.
