From the Bleachers
with Rich Summers
This is the last full week for the winter sports schedule for the local high schools so it is time to take a look at the District 9 Class A basketball playoffs. We’ll tackle the boy’s game this week and then take a look at the girl’s tourney next week.
There are fifteen teams in the district in Class A and as of today seven have winning records and will almost certainly enter the open event. Of the non-winning teams, Allegheny-Clarion Valley is 6-12 as is DuBois Central Catholic. I don’t know if either team will enter but the likelihood of playing the number one seed, Elk County Catholic, in the first round may deter such a decision.
The aforementioned ECC is 17-2 and will gain the number one seed by winning their final three games against Brookville, St. Marys and Bradford. ECC has already beaten all three teams but none was a blowout and all three have a good chance to upset the Crusaders but that’s not the way to bet. So we’ll give them the top seed. North Clarion is 16-2 and has four games remaining against Clarion, Venango and two with Keystone. They will be favored against Clarion and VC but Keystone will be a tough opponent. Even with four losses they will probably gain the second seed as we will discuss later.