Class 1 and 2 Previews (10-29)

Coaches - The last regular season Power Rankings will be posted shortly. While these have proven to be fairly accurate (based on postseason successes) in our short run of using them, there are also the "gotta play the games" and "it's soccer...anything can happen" factors that make the postseason so fun. There has been a lot of talk regarding the way that we seed our districts and if we would be better off with using our Power Rankings. For fun (or maybe more out of curiosity), here's a look at how the districts were seeded and how they would have been seeded if we used the power rankings. One big argument regarding the use of Power Rankings to seed comes from teams within a district not playing each other during the regular season, unlike football, for example.

The rankings used were from the Oct. 25 edition that came out earlier this week - mainly because if we did use these to seed, we would use ones from that time period and not the final ones that will be posted later today. "No change" means that the districts were seeded as teams were ranked in the Power Rankings.

Class 1

District 1 - No change

District 2 - Gateway (9) would have been the 1 seed over Brentwood (10). The two did not play in the regular season. Metro (16) would have been the 3 seed and Maplewood (20) 4; HOWEVER...MRH beat Maplewood in the regular season. This is one of the many instances where playing head to head paid off for a team. Unfortunately, since teams don't know district assignments until after schedules are made, this is always going to be an issue and perhaps a reason to use the Power Rankings as a tool for seeding.

District 3 - STEAM (15) should have been the 2 seed and Canton (24) the 3 seed over Crossroads (31), who did get the 2 seed. This is likely a case where a school considerably far away from the others (Canton) likely gets pushed down in the seeding due to no (or few) common opponents. Crossroads did beat STEAM in the regular season.

District 4 - Fatima (17) is the 4 seed, behind #2 Borgia (21) and #3 MMA (22). Fatima lost to MMA 5-4 in the regular season. Borgia at 3-18 likely gets the 2nd seed due to a difficult non-conference schedule.

District 5 - Laquey (26) is the 1 seed over Dixon 2 (12) and Crocker 3 (18). Laquey lost to Dixon TWICE in the regular season and defeated Crocker 7-0. The complication comes with Crocker defeating Dixon 5-2 in the regular season.

District 6 - Stover (32) is a 4 seed and Cole Camp (30) a 5. While this really only matters as to what uniform they wear for the game, Cole Camp should be the 4 seed by virtue of a win over Stover in the regular season.

District 7 - #2 Knob Noster (27), #3 Lone Jack (29) and #4 Green Ridge (28) are the 2-4 seeds, so there is not much discrepancy there. Knob Noster defeated both teams in the regular season.

District 8 - Summit Christian (6) is the 1 seed over Maryville (3). The two teams did not play in the regular season.

Class 2

District 1 - No Change

District 2 - No Change

District 3 - This district features 3 of the top 4 teams in the state. Westminster (2) gets the 1 seed over #2 Whitfield (1) and #3 Orchard Farm (4) likely due to Westminster's OT win over Whitfield. Whitfield also knocked off Orchard Farm in the regular season. To further complicate this district, Duchesne (30) is the 4 seed over St. Charles (18) due to Duchesne's 2-1 win over St. Charles.

District 4 - Wright City (22) is the 6 seed behind #3 Christian (25) and #4 St. Charles West (34) AND #5 Winfield (32). This is the biggest drop of any team via the rankings based on seeding; however Wright City went 0-2 in district play, losing to both SCW and Winfield.

District 5 - The only issues here are down at the bottom of the seedings where #5 Cassville (45) is ahead of #6 Greenwood (43) and #7 Aurora (44). Cassville beat Greenwood but split two games with Aurora. Aurora also beat Greenwood 9-1 at the end of the season.

District 6 - No Change.

District 7 - Four teams lumped together in the middle in the 30's. #3 Center (36) is ahead of #4 St. Pius (33), #5 Pleasant Hill (39) and #6 Ewing Kauffman (37). Center lost to Pius and beat Pleasant Hill. The big difference here is that Pius likely should have had a semi match up with #2 Barstow instead of #1 Harrisonville who beat Pius 2-0 earlier.

District 8 - No Change