WILCOX — A timeless baseball adage forecasts that, win or lose, sometimes it rains. Lately, it has rained a lot.
The storms that have poured rain on the area over the last week have complicated the Elk County Legion Baseball League’s postseason situation as regional playoffs quickly approach.
The Region 8 tournament, in which Elk’s representatives will contend with teams from two other leagues for a trip to the state playoffs, is scheduled to begin on July 16.
To be eligible for the tournament, however, each team must complete a minimum of 12 regular season games. If all had gone according to plan, the Elk County league’s playoffs would have begun yesterday.
Recent rainouts, some of which were makeup games to begin with, have caused a shuffle in the league’s schedule to accommodate.
The top three teams from the five-member Elk circuit will qualify for the regional tournament at Northwestern High School in Albion, about 30 miles southwest of Erie. There, they’ll be split into two four-team pools, with the top two finishers in each pool advancing to a two-round playoff bracket.
Wilcox Post #467, which clinched the top league’s top seed with its current 10-1 record, still needs another game to meet the criteria required for regionals. Smethport Post #976, which sits at 6-4, needs two such games to qualify.
Those two teams are scheduled to meet in Smethport on Thursday, weather permitting, to fulfill Wilcox’s requirement and move Smethport a step closer to doing the same. Smethport had been scheduled to play Emporium Post #427 on Wednesday to finish its regular season schedule, but was rained out.
Since the 12-game regional requirement trumps local playoff games in terms of ensuring the Elk league can send its three teams to Albion, the league’s postseason will largely be postponed until after regionals.
Wilcox would receive an automatic bye into the Elk championship game as the bracket’s top seed anyway, only requiring the second and third place teams to knock off the fourth and fifth place finishers to ensure their spots in Albion.
That would pit No. 2 Bradford Post #108, which at 9-3 has already completed its necessary regular season slate, against No. 5 Emporium. Third-seeded Smethport would take on No. 4 Kane Post #1038 in the other game.
If weather doesn’t allow those games to be played, the league will determine its delegates based on record. If that happens, Bradford and Smethport will have already clinched their spots.
Wilcox coach Scott Zimmerman, knowing that his team has already punched its ticket to regionals, looks forward to the potential run that Post #467 could make.
“We’re not looking ahead of anything, but we want to get into the state playoffs for sure,” Zimmerman said. “We have to play very good baseball defensively to get there. But our goal is to at least get to the state playoffs.”
Wilcox boasts a pitching staff that Zimmerman said he’s “lucky” to have, as right-hander Carson Whiteman and lefty Gabe Watts headline a deep arsenal that will feature multiple quality arms in each game it plays.
“We’ve probably got 10 guys that we can pitch,” Zimmerman said. “That will really help us when we get into a tournament like this.”
Wilcox will enter ‘Pool B’ of the Region 8 tournament and will begin pool play on July 16 against the second-seeded team from the Crawford Legion league.
If Bradford and Smethport each advance, Bradford would play in ‘Pool A,’ while Smethport would join Wilcox in the other. That would pit Smethport against Wilcox in a 10 a.m. start on July 17 after Post #976 opens its tournament against the runner-up of the Erie league the day before.
“I think that will definitely help that we have playoff experience,” Zimmerman said. “A lot of these kids have been playing together for a really long time, too, so that will help.”
Many of Wilcox’s players were members of the Johnsonburg High School team that made it to the quarterfinals of the PIAA Class 2A state tournament less than two months ago. Even more played on the Elk-McKean All-Star teams that were a perennial Little League power, appearing in the Junior League World Series three years ago.
Zimmerman knows that the elevated level of play at regionals may require his team to make adjustments. Wilcox, like Johnsonburg does in the spring, prides itself on speed.
Against stingy defenses and strong throwing arms behind the plate, however, baserunning and the manufacturing of runs will be at a premium.
“You’re going to have to do a lot more bunting to get people over on base,” Zimmerman said. “There is going to be a lot more ‘small ball’ considered. We’re probably still going to be stealing some, but once the catchers get better, we’re going to have to play small ball to get the runs in.”
Elk’s three regional playoff teams will be joined by two from Crawford and two from Erie. A winner, and state tournament representative, will be crowned July 19.
