Nationals Arm Race

Congrats to Wilson, both public and city champs!

Welcome to my DC Area Prep Baseball Tourney coverage for 2018.

Here’s the rough schedule of posting and what we’ll cover:

• #1: DC/MD/VA District High School Tournament Report: post-season kickoff (this post).  Covers: MD regionals, VA district brackets, Private school tourney updates.  Usually publishes the week before Memorial day tournament finals.
• #2: Maryland State Champs, Northern VA Regional Champs crowned.  Covers: MD state finals, VA regionals tourneys, DC regular season results.  Usually publishes after the Memorial Day weekend tournaments finish up.
  #3: Virginia Regional Results, DC Tourneys.  Covers: VA regional results, State brackets, DC tourney results.  Usually publishes the first week of June.
  #4: Final Prep Baseball Update: Virginia State Champions crowned.  Covers: VA state tourneys, recaps MD, DC, Private School results.  Publishes mid-June once the Va state tourney wraps up.
• #5: Players of the Year/All-State lists and final rankings; publishes early July once all the all-state lists are published.
• #6: my theoretical “All DC/MD/VA Dream tournament” pairings, once all the state champs are finalized.

Northern Virginia

Virginal district tournaments start up on 5/16/18 and regionals start up on 5/23/18.  All local district playoff brackets are well kept at NovaBaseballmagazine.com.

The top four teams from each district tourney form the 16-team regional brackets, to be published later on once all the divisions are finalized.

A reminder that there was some slight re-alignment from last year; regional powerhouse Madison was moved out of the Liberty district for the first time in decades, now joins the strong Concorde division with some bigger schools.  There are now mixed conferences, splitting teams up that were formerly 4A, 5A and 6A.  Plus there does not seem to be the old “Northern” and “NorthWest” regions.  Just 7 mixed-division districts for the whole upper area of the state.

In a first in my memory, 7 straight days of rain forced organizers to literally abandon playoff games and just hand out district titles.

• Cardinal (mostly 6-A): #1 Potomac, #2 Forest Park, Forest Park won the title over Potomac after both being handed rain-out passes to the final.
• Cedar Run (6-A): the two top seeds (#1 Battlefield and #2 Patriot) and frequent rivals advanced to the final … which was rained out and cancelled, giving Battlefield the title.
• Commonwealth (mostly 5-A): #1 Mountain View and #2 Stafford were given passes to regionals as the entire post-season tournament was cancelled.
• Concorde District (6-A): #1 Madison, #2 Centreville; Madison beat Chantilly in the final for its 6th straight district title.
• Dulles (4-A): #1 Riverside, #2 Woodgrove; semis scheduled for 5/23/18 weather permitting.
• Gunston District (6-A): #1 West Potomac, #2 T.C. Williams, who lost to #3 Annandale setting up a 5/18/18 final.
• Liberty (6-A): #4 seed Yorktown won the play-in then crushed #1 seeded McLean to advance to the final versus #2 South Lakes.  Yorktown took the title in an upset to secure a bye in the regionals.
• National (mostly 5-A): #1 Marshall faces off against #3 Edison for the title.  Marshall destroyed Edison for the title and got an “at-large” bid into the 6-A regional tourney.
• Northwest (6-A): #1 Fauquier and #2 Sherando; playoffs not scheduled to occur til the 5/25/18 weekend.
• Patriot (6-A): #1 Lake Braddock faces off versus #2 West Springfield in a battle of perennial powers, with LB (perhaps the area’s top public team) winning.
• Potomac (5-A): #1 Freedom-South Riding and #2 Stone Bridge; final 5/25/18.

We’ll cover the Regional brackets once all the teams are qualified for their respective divisions.

Maryland

At this point, the Maryland State tournament is nearly complete; the state finals are this coming weekend.  Brackets here at the MPSAA website and direct links to the four State-wide brackets are linked directly below.

• Maryland 4-A: Regional champs Howard, Bethesda-Chevy Chase, CH Flowers, and Severna Park face off for the state title.
• Maryland 3-A: Regional champs Towson, Thomas Johnson, Huntingtown and Chesapeake-Anne Arundel face off for the state title.
• Maryland 2-A: Regional champs Hereford, Century, North East and power-house La Plata face off for the state title.
• Maryland 1-A: Regional champs Sparrows Point (a favorite), Boonsboro, McDonough and defending state champ St. Michaels face off for the state title.

DC

• DCIAA: (2018 playoff bracket): Wilson won its 26th consecutive DCIAA championship 5-0 over School Without Walls on 5/10/18.   This is perhaps not even the most startling stat about Wilson right now.  The went 11-0 in conference play, outscoring their opponents 168-1.  That’s right; they gave up one run in league play all year.  Deadspin featured the school and did some more research into its past; their piece is worth a read.
• DCSAA: (2018 Playoff Bracket): the DCSAA tourney runs from 5/16 to 5/20.  Wilson is the #1 seed and advanced to the final against #2 seeded St. Albans (the IAC champ).  There, on 5/22/18, for the first time in its history, Wilson won the DC “state” title, beating St. Albans in extra innings.  They’ve won 26 straight public school titles but had never won the city title until now.

Private Leagues: WCAC/MAC/IAC and VISAA/Maryland Private

State-level Private School tourneys:

• MIAA:
  • Division A: play started on 5/11/18: Archbishop Curley, John Carroll, Calvert Hall, Loyola, Archbishop Spalding and Gilman the 6 entrants.  Loyola the defending state champ.  In the final, #1 seeded Curley beat #6 Gilman.
  • Division B: play started on 5/11/18.  Mostly smaller private schools around the state of Maryland; powerhouse Boy’s Latin #1 seed.  In the end, Boy’s Latin won its 3rd straight title.
  • Division C: (difficult to find information)
• VISAA: The Virginial Private State-wide tournament kicked off on 5/14/18 with play-ins.  Here’s a review of the local teams involved:
  • Division I: The Potomac School (#8 seed) lost its play-in game and was eliminated early.  Local teams Paul VI (#3) and Flint Hill (#6) faced off in the quarters on 5/15/18. and Paul VI came out on top, ending Flint Hill’s season without any titles.  All the other schools are from Richmond or Norfolk areas, including the top seeded St. Christopher’s and Benedictine.  #2 seed Benedictine was upset by #7 Norfolk Academy, and #5 Collegiate upset #4 Norfolk Christian to setup some unexpected semis.  In the final, the dominant St. Christophers team took the title.
  • Division II: no DC-area schools: the Miller school (coached by former MLB pitcher, Virginia native and HoFame candidate Billy Wagner) and Highland School are the top seeds.  Powerhouse #4 seed Greenbriar Christian was upset in the first round.  Miller faced off against Steward in the final, and ended up winning to repeat as champs.
  • Division III: no DC-area schools: Walsingham and Southampton academies are the top seeds.  In the end, Walsingham beat the Fuqua School 6-5 on a walk-off SB-error in the bottom of the 10th.
• Maryland Private School Tournament; tbd: it did not seem to occur in 2017, we’ll see for 2018.

DC-area Private School Leagues

• WCAC: DeMatha ousted #1 seed Paul VI to face off against WCAC power St. Johns for the title.  The title series went to the decisive third game, which went 12-innings and ended with a walk-off homer win for St. Johns.  This is St. John’s fifth straight WCAC title.
• MAC: The Potomac School walked-off against St. James in a surprise final; MAC powerhouse Flint Hill was upset early.
  
• IAC: Georgetown Prep won the regular season title.  St. Albans downed Georgetown Prep in the 3rd game of the playoffs to win a “share” of the title for themselves.
• PVAC: (difficult to find information).

Local and National High School Baseball Ranking Lists:

• Washington Post All Met Sports Area top-10 ranking (5/7/18): Riverdale Baptist has been the clear #1 all  year; it has been a down year for traditional NoVa powers.
• NovaBaseballMagazine.com Rankings:Riverside, Lake Braddock and Paul VI have been the dominant teams in 2018.
• VISAA maintains Private school polls/rankings (5/7/18)
• PrepBaseballReport maintains a VA State-Wide Power25 Rankings:
• Baltimore Sun Top-10 Poll Archives:
• The Virginian Pilot Top-10 for Hampton Roads area:
• Richmond times-Dispatch Richmond-Area top-10:
• Baseball America’s National High School Rankings 4/17/18: Riverdale Baptist at #7.
• USA Today High School Experts top 25: Riverdale Baptist at #9 nationally.
• MaxPreps “Excellent 50” ranking: Riverdale Baptist at #7.

These National rankings are dominated by teams in Texas, Florida and California, as you might expect.  These teams can play nearly 40 games and usually have at least 15-20 under their belts before DC/MD/VA teams even get going.  So its somewhat of an accomplishment just to have a local team get some recognition.  In fact, any cold-weather state team appearing in these lists is pretty special.

Major Newspaper Links/Resources for following prep baseball around the state

• Washington Post’s AllMetSports section with standings and schedule results.
• The Baltimore Sun’s high school page has information on some of the programs outside the DC area mentioned in the Maryland section
• InsideNova.com‘s coverage of high school sports, but has put limits on the number of stories you can read.
• Richmond Times-Dispatch has a HS scoreboard.
• Hampton Roads Pilot (Hampton Roads) has scores for teams in the Chesapeake/Norfolk/Va Beach area.
• NovaBaseballMagazine: great coverage of Prep baseball in NorthernVirginia (thanks to Joe Antonellis for the heads up on this great new resource).

Local Newspaper Coverage, including links to many local papers covering smaller jurisdictions.

• The Connection family of newspapers has a sports section that is rarely updated, but it does do some coverage.
• Nvdaily.com (Strasburg) has some results for some of the teams in the smaller conferences/outskirts of DC, generally in the Strasburg area.
• WinchesterStar (Winchester) has results for Winchester teams but its pay-only.
• The Daily Progress (Culpeper local paper) also has some scores for schools in its areas.
• Fauquier Times (Fauquier) has some local sports news.
• VivaLoudoun tracks the Loudoun/Ashburn/Leesburg teams.
• The Loudoun Times also covers Leesburg-area teams.
• LoCosports blog, with tons of Loudoun county Coverage
• Fredericksburg.com has some local coverage of Fredericksburg and Woodbridge teams.
• The Lynchburg News & Advance for Lynchburg-based sports.
• The Virginia Gazette for Williamsburg local stuff.

Non-newspaper Links for Local and National Prep Baseball Coverage

• VHSL’s and MPSSAA home pages for updates on VA and MD respectively.
• DCIAA‘s website, which barely has a schedule but will eventually print results and playoff brackets
• PerfectGame: perfectgame.org is the best place to find HS prospect information.
• MaxPreps DC/VA specific coverage.
• Prep Baseball Report: DC/VA specific coverage (thanks again to Joe Antonellis for this link)
• Dynamic Baseball: good prep coverage on the east coast.

Good Twitter accounts to follow:

• https://twitter.com/toddeboss/lists/prepbaseball: I maintain an open list at my twitter account via this link, which contains direct links to dozens of local resources (including all the below).  Way too many retweets from the travel team accounts especially, but its a good way to keep up with local ball.
• https://twitter.com/PBRVirginiaDC: Prep Baseball Report VA/DC coverage
• https://twitter.com/NVBaseballMag: NoVa Baseball Magazine
• https://twitter.com/NoVAHSBB
• https://twitter.com/DynamicBaseball