Playoff Primer

WINCHESTER, Va. - As the Valley League heads into its final full week of the 2011 season, the playoff picture is beginning to take shape.

With the return of the three-division format, the league will determine its eight playoff teams in the following manner:

• The champions of the North, South and Central Divisions
• The runners-up in the North, South and Central
• The remaining two teams with the best records

Teams will be seeded from one through eight based upon regular season record with the three divisional champions guaranteed a top three seed.

Ties for seeds two through seven will be broken by tie-breaking criteria. If teams are tied for either the No. 1 or No. 8 positions, a one-game playoff will be held to determine those seeds.

The first round of the playoffs will be:

No. 1 vs No. 8

No. 2 vs No. 7

No. 3 vs No. 6

No. 4 vs No. 5

In all cases, the higher seed will hold the home-field advantage in the best-of-three series.

If the season were to end today, the seeds would be:

No. 1 Harrisonburg 25-9

No. 2 Winchester 21-12

No. 3 Waynesboro 18-16

No. 4 New Market 20-14

No. 5 Front Royal 17-15

No. 6 Staunton 17-16

No. 7 Rockbridge 15-16

No. 8 Covington 14-16

Harrisonburg is the closest to clinching a playoff berth at this time - the Turks have a magic number* of two in the Central Division race against third place Luray. Any combination of two Harrisonburg wins or Luray losses will clinch a playoff spot for the Turks. 

Winchester has a magic number of four.

*Magic Number = (45 - Wins of Team 1 - Losses of Team 2). The first number, 45, is the number of regular season games plus one. The 'add-one' is used to prevent ties.

In the above cases, Harrisonsburg has two as its magic number because (45 - 25 Turks wins - 18 Wranglers losses) = 2.

and Winchester: (45 - 21 Royals wins - 20 Haymarket losses) = 4.

In short, Harrisonburg can clinch a playoff spot tonight with a win tonight over Luray (one Harrisonburg win plus one Luray loss).