By Mark Carpenter
People’s Defender
With the final contests of regular season play happening this week, the high school baseball teams from Adams County and the entire Southeast District now know where to focus their postseason attentions. The squads from West Union, Peebles, Manchester and North Adams have completed all their conference action and will finish up this week with non-conference games as tournament prep.
In the Division V Baseball brackets, Coach John Shelton and his West Union Dragons (2-16) will be in the equivalent of an NCAA basketball First Four playoff game. The Dragons are the #20 seed and will be on the road for their play-in, traveling on May 18 to Chesapeake High School for a 5 p.m. first pitch. Though the West Union nine will be the underdogs, if they pull off an upset, they will move to the district quarterfinals and be on the road again on May 21 at #4 seeded Zane Trace (17-6).
The rest of the county baseball squads are all bunched into Division VI, beginning with the #5 seeded Manchester Greyhounds, who make the move up from Division VII because of competitive balance numbers. With the five seed, the Greyhounds (10-8) will host a district quarterfinal game at 5 p.m. on May 19, and the visitors being the #12 seeded Eastern Brown Warriors. The Hounds defeated the Warriors 15-5 on April 17 in conference play and if they repeat that victory, they will be on to the district semifinals on May 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the VA Memorial Stadium in Chillicothe, facing the winner of #4 seed Southeastern and #13 seed Belpre. If they manage to make it out to the May 26 district title game, the Hounds could possibly face a match up with #4 seed Huntington, a team they lost to 9-6 in extra innings on May 2.
“We got the seed I was expecting to get going into the draw,” said Manchester head coach Trey Meade. “We have Eastern brown, who has been playing better baseball lately. It’s just survive and advance at this point of thee year.”
The #6 seed in Division V went to the Peebles Indians (14-8) and the Tribe also earned a home game in the district quarterfinals, hosting #11 seeded Beaver Eastern on May 19 at 5 p.m. If the favored Indians get past that first outing, they go to the district semis with the likely foes being the #3 seeded Waterford Wildcats, who should have no trouble in their quarterfinal match up with 0-15 Ripley. If Peebles advances to the district finals, that game will be played at the VA on May 26.
Finally in Division VI, the North Adams Green Devils (10-12) are the #9 seed, narrowly missing a home district quarterfinal game. Instead the Devils will be on the road on May 19, facing #8 seed Symmes Valley. If the Devils survive that trip, they will jump to the district semifinals on May 23 at 4 p.m. at VA Memorial, battling #4 seeded Huntington.
“I wanted that 8 seed to be able to host a game but I knew we would fall between 8 and 10,” said North Adams head coach Ryan Unger. “If we can put a whole game together, we are a dangerous team. This draw allows us to play teams that we know very little about, which sometimes helps in baseball.”
All of the Southeast District baseball tournament brackets can be found at https://www.ohsaa.org/Southeast-Sports-Tournaments/Baseball.
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