The Prep Beat

There’s two weeks left in the regular season for high school football teams. Here’s a quick look at how the postseason’s shaping up for local teams.
Narrows League
South Kitsap (7-0 overall, 6-0 league) is in first place and closes the season at home against Lincoln (2-5, 2-4) and Mount Tahoma (1-6, 1-5). If the Wolves win out — and it would be a major upset if they didn’t — they will host the second-place team from Greater St. Helen’s League (currently, Kelso (5-2, 2-1) and Heritage (3-4, 2-1) are tied for second, but Heritage beat Kelso 30-29 in overtime over the weekend) in the Class 4A state preliminary round.
South Kitsap faces a potential matchup with No. 1 Skyline (7-0, 4-0) or No. 2 Bothell (7-0, 4-0) in the first round of the Class 4A state tournament.
As a reminder, the preliminary round is in place for the Class 4A and 3A playoffs, and they take place in Week 10. The schools who don’t qualify for the playoffs have a final game to finish out the season.
Central Kitsap (4-2, 4-3) is in fourth place in the Narrows and is in solid shape for a playoff spot. If the Cougars beat Stadium (2-5, 2-5) on Friday, they will head into Week 9 with a game against Wilson (5-2, 5-1), which is tied for second. CK could end up anywhere from the third to the fifth spot. The fifth spot is one best avoided. The No. 5 team plays the No. 4 team from the South Puget Sound League’s North Division No. 4 (currently Federal Way (5-2)) in a Tuesday play-in game. The winner of that teams travels to the Greater St. Helen’s League champions, currently Skyview (5-2), in the preliminary round. That’s three games in eight days, including a trip to Vancouver.
Note: Those Week 9 games for South Kitsap and Central Kitsap are on Thursday, Oct. 29.

Olympic Western League
The OWL has four berths into the Class 3A state preliminary round. Barring uspets, the top three spots will be taken by No. 7 Timberline (7-0, 5-0), North Thurston (6-1, 5-0) and Capital (4-3, 4-1).
That leaves one spot for the Olympic League. The winner of Friday’s Olympic (4-3, 2-3) at North Kitsap (3-4, 2-3) game should take the fourth spot, which is at the Greater St. Helen’s League champion. The GSHL champ will be decided in Week 9 when No. 10 Camas (6-1, 3-0) faces No. 3 Union (6-1, 3-0).

Olympic/Nisqually League
Sequim (6-1, 4-0) put itself in the driver’s seat for the league title by beating North Mason on Friday. If the Wolves take care of business against Eatonville (3-4, 3-1) and Fife (4-3, 3-1) they will take the league’s No. 1 seed into the Class 2A state tournament. They would host the No. 3 team from the Northwest District.
North Mason (6-1, 3-1), assuming it beats Washington (2-5, 1-3) this week and Kingston (1-6, 1-3) to end the season, will make the playoffs as long as it beats Fife (4-3, 3-1) in Week 9. That would give the Bulldogs the league’s No. 2 playoff spot. But, there’s a catch. The league’s No. 2 spot has to play No. 7 Interlake (5-2) in a Class 2A state play-in game. That game would be Tuesday before the first round of state.
Interlake is the only Class 2A teams in the ultra-tough KingCo 3A/2A. It beat North Mason in the play-in game last year.

Metro League
In the Mountain Division, Bainbridge (4-3, 2-2) are a win away from clinching a spot in the Class 3A state preliminary round. The Spartans need to beat Blanchet (0-7, 0-4) to clinch a playoff spot.
They would head into the Metro League crossovers in Week 9 to decide which seed they will take to the playoffs. Bainbridge will play for the fifth or sixth seed. The fifth seed plays the Seamount champ; currently Lindbergh (6-1) is in first place. The No. 6 seed plays at KingCo No. 1, which will be the winner of Friday’s game between No. 2 Liberty (7-0) and No. 4 Bellevue (5-2).

Nisqually 1A
Port Townsend (4-3, 2-2) and Chimacum (4-3, 2-2) are tied for fourth place. The top three teams make the playoffs, so both would need to win out and get a little help. PT and Chimacum play each other on Oct. 30.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 8:02 pm by nathan joyce and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.