Monday, April 6, 2009

After cold weather wiped out invitational tournaments the past two weekends, baseball fans are hoping to snap the losing streak this weekend.  With high temperatures in the fifties and sixties for the upcoming weekend, there is a good chance that the Wildcat Invite at Millard West (Thursday - Saturday) and the Lincoln North Star Gator Invite at Sherman Field (Saturday) will go forward as scheduled.  That's good news for fans who are looking forward seeing some of the top-ranked teams go head-to-head during the weekend prior to the midseason Metro Conference Tournament and Heartland Athletic Conference.

The three-day Wildcat Invite features six Class A Top 10 Class Teams, including the #1, 2 & 3 teams in that class, as well as Class B #1 Elkhorn.  Lincoln East (3-4) is the only unranked team in the tournament field.  The seeding was done on Friday morning, based on Wild Card Point standings for games played through Thursday.  Those numbers resulted in a pretty tough opponent for #1 seed Westside (8-1) who drew #8 seed Lincoln Southeast (2-3) in their opening round game Thursday night at 7:30 -- especially if Josh Scheffert is on the mound for the Knights. 

The other pairings for Thursday's opening round games include:

12:00 pm Class B #1 Elkhorn (#2 seed, 8-1) vs. Class A #8 Bryan (#7 seed, 7-3)

2:30 pm Class A #3 Millard South (#3 seed, 5-2) vs. Lincoln East (#6 seed, 3-4)

5:00 pm Class A #2 Millard West (#4 seed, 6-2) vs. Class A #6 Millard North (#5 seed )

The semifinals will be played at 5:00 and 7:30 on Friday, with the winners advancing to the Championship Game to be played Saturday evening at 6:00pm.  Losers' Bracket games will be played earlier in the day on Friday and Saturday with the third place game at 3:30 on Saturday.  All teams will play three games -- win or lose.  All games are scheduled to be played at Millard West.

| Complete Tournament Bracket and Schedule |

The field of the one-day Gator Invite at Sherman Field in Lincoln includes three Lincoln schools  -- host North Star, Southwest and Lincoln High -- and Bellevue East.  Southwest (5-2) is the highest ranked team in the tournament at #7, and Bellevue East is currently ranked tenth with a 3-4 record.  The Gators (2-2) and Links (2-5) are unranked.

Schedule:

11:00 Game 1:  North Star vs. Lincoln High

1:00 Game 2:  Southwest vs. Bellevue East

3:15  Consolation Game:  Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2

5:15 Championship Game:  Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2