Post-Season Tournaments on the Horizon for Badgers, Lady Badgers

Regular season schedules for AHS spring sports teams are winding down over the next week and District tournaments are on the horizon as the spring 2017 season winds down.

Arkadelphia will have junior track, baseball, softball, girls’ soccer, boys’ soccer and senior track all participating in district tournaments or meets over the next 10 days.

Below are the dates of the post-season events followed by a description of the tournaments and scenarios that the Arkadelphia teams face. The softball and baseball brackets are pictured after their information.

JUNIOR TRACK AND FIELD:
Thursday, April 20, at Nashville High School beginning at 1:00 p.m.

SENIOR TRACK AND FIELD:
Tuesday, April 25, at Ashdown High School beginning at 12:00 p.m.

GIRLS’ AND BOYS’ SOCCER: First round: Saturday, April 29 – site and teams TBA Subsequent rounds, TBA -- soccer tournament format to be determined Thursday, April 20 -- top four teams from each division in 4A-2 will qualify for tournament

THE SETUP: This is the first year that the 4A-2 will have a district tournament to determine the four teams to advance to the 4A State Tournament. With 15 teams in the conference, the teams were split into two divisions and the top four teams after the double round robin schedule among the division.

The school administrators will meet on April 20 to determine the format and locations of the girls and boys tournaments, with the possibility of first round game at high seeds then the remaining teams meeting at one location for the remainder of the tournament.

After the format is determined, we’ll post information for those interested.

To this point, the Lady Badgers are 6-0 in 4A-2 matches and the Badgers are 2-5, needing a win over Gurdon and/or Centerpoint to solidify their spot in the district tournament.

4A-7 SOFTBALL AND BASEBALL 
8 teams split up into two divisions, East and West: 

EAST: Arkadelphia, Bauxite, Fountain Lake, and Malvern
WEST: Ashdown, Malvern, Mena and Nashville.

The Divisions will be seeded 1-4 and the tournament format will take the shape of the traditional Regional Tournaments with 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 from each division. The three games within each team’s division will be used to seed 1-4 for the District Tournament.

SOFTBALL: April 26, 28 and 29 at Mena High School
- all 8 teams in tournament field; seeding based on finish in division
Wednesday, April 26: 4 first-round games at 10:00, 12:30, 3:00 and 5:30
Friday, April 28: Semifinal games at 4:00 and 6:30
Saturday, April 29: Championship game at 4:30; consolation game at 6:30

THE SETUP: The Lady Badgers are 1-1 in 4A-7 games that count toward seeding, with a loss to Malvern and a win over Fountain Lake. The Lady Badgers will face the top-ranked team in the state in any classification in the Bauxite Lady Miners in the final game of the 4A-7 slate. A win would cause a three-way tie and force the teams into the tiebreak procedure. A loss would give the Lady Badgers a third seed and they would play their first-round game on Wednesday at 5:30 p.m. in Mena.


BASEBALL: April 26, 28, and 29 at Ashdown High School
- all 8 teams in tournament field; seeding based on finish in division
Wednesday, April 26: 4 first-round games: 10:00, 12:30; 3:00 and 5:30
Friday, April 28: Semifinal games at 4:00 and 6:30
Saturday, April 29: Championship game at 4:30; consolation game at 6:30

THE SETUP: The Badgers are 2-0 in the 4A-7 games that count toward seeding with one-run wins over Malvern and Fountain Lake. The Badgers will face Bauxite on Thursday evening in Arkadelphia, trying to wrap up the top seed from the East Division of the 4A-7. If Bauxite wins, there would be a three-way tie at the top between Bauxite, Malvern and the Badgers and the AAA tiebreak procedure would be utilized to decide the top three seeds.

The unique thing about this division is that the five games between the four teams in the East Division have all been decided by one run.  If Bauxite were to defeat the Badgers by one run, then there would be a three-way tie at 2-1 with a perfect triangle and an equal amount of tiebreak runs for all three teams. The teams would steal from “Friday Night Lights” and meet Monday for a coin flip to decide the top three seeds.