It might seem difficult to believe. But after a spring filled with rain, wind, hail and cold, we have reached the final week of the high school baseball season in the Class 4A and 3A Greater St. Helens Leagues.
Amazingly, it looks like those leagues are all caught up as they enter the final week.
The 2A GSHL and Trico League baseball schedule continues into May, as do all soccer and softball schedules, so that’s why we’ll focus on 4A and 3A GSHL baseball and what’s at stake this week.
4A GSHL: The top three teams earn postseason berths, with the regular-season league champion earning a free pass into the bi-district tournament.
Union (8-2) enters the week with a 1½-game lead over Skyview (6-3). The Titans play at Heritage on Tuesday and at home against Skyview on Friday.
Having already posted a pair of wins over the Storm, the Titans can clinch the No. 1 seed to the bi-district tournament with a win over Heritage (5-5).
Not that a win over the Timberwolves will be easy. Heritage gave Union one of its two league losses (Evergreen being the other).
Regardless of what happens Tuesday, Union can clinch the outright league title by beating Skyview on Friday.
Because of those two previous losses to Union, Skyview’s only hope to claim the No. 1 seed to the bi-district is to win all three of its games this week (Tuesday vs. Battle Ground, Thursday vs. Evergreen and Friday vs. Union) and hope Union falls to Heritage on Tuesday.
If Union takes the No. 1 spot, that leaves Skyview (6-3), Evergreen (5-5) and Heritage (5-5) to battle out for the Nos. 2 and 3 spots.
The league’s No. 2 and No. 3 teams will play a one-game playoff to determine the league’s second seed to the bi-district tournament.
Because the Storm have already clinched their head-to-head series against Evergreen and Heritage, Skyview only needs to win one of its three games this week to secure a spot in the league playoff.
Evergreen holds the tiebreaker over Heritage. So the Timberwolves would need to win both of their games this week, and hope Evergreen stumbles against Skyview or last-place Battle Ground.
3A GSHL: Things are a little clearer down in the 3A.
Camas has been perfect — 16-0. The Papermakers wrap up the regular season with a non-league game Tuesday against Evergreen, then back-to-back league showdowns with Mountain View on Thursday and Friday.
Mountain View has been almost perfect — 16-1. The Thunder’s lone blemish is a 1-0 loss to Hockinson way back on March 16. The Thunder have run off 15 consecutive wins since then and are 9-0 in the 3A GSHL.
Mountain View faces Prairie on Tuesday before meeting Camas late in the week.
If Mountain View keeps its record perfect on Tuesday, then the two-game series on Thursday and Friday will determine the league champion.
Or will it? If the two teams split, then there may be another tiebreaker needed to determine the top seed to the district playoffs.
Five league teams advance to the district playoffs, with four of those teams moving on to the bi-district tournament.
Prairie (5-4), Hudson’s Bay (4-5) and Kelso (3-6) have also clinched postseason berths. Prairie and Bay play back-to-back games Thursday and Friday. Bay also faces Kelso on Tuesday.
If Kelso can beat Bay, the Hilanders can look to improve their postseason seeding when they conclude their league season with games against last-place Fort Vancouver.
Oh, and wouldn’t you know it. After a very nice week of weather last week, this week’s forecast looks cool and unsettled.
So it’s quite possible that we won’t have all questions answered by the end of this week.
Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached by phone at (360) 735-4538 or email at tim.martinez@columbian.com
