When a nine-game LTC regular season couldn’t decide a playoff schedule for either Class B or C teams, conference officials met Monday in Pittsfield and sorted things out.
With three teams tied for the third and fourth playoff spots, the final result in Class B was bound to leave one team unhappy with the criteria used in the tie-breaker system. That school turned out to be Winslow.
Third-seeded Leavitt of Turner will travel to second-seeded Brewer Friday for a 7 p.m. start in one conference semifinal while the fourth seed, Morse of Bath, will visit undefeated and top-seeded Belfast on Saturday at 1 p.m.
In Class C, top-seeded Foxcroft will host fourth-seeded Stearns of Millinocket and third-seeded Bucksport will travel to Lincoln to take on the second seed, Mattanawcook Academy. Both games will be played Friday at 7 p.m.
Mount Desert Island athletic director Bunky Dow also serves as the secretary and treasurer of the conference. Dow said that representatives of each conference school and league officials met at Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield.
“We had playoff criteria established and that’s what we went by,” Dow said.
Dow said that different criteria was established in 1999 for both classes. The difference in criteria was due to crossover play with the Campbell Conference in Class B.
The Crabtree points system, was the first criteria used. The system adds a team’s winning percentage to their opponents’ combined percentage and then is multiplied by 100.
It established Morse, Leavitt and Winslow were tied.
Heal points were the second criteria used. The Heal points system determines a team’s preliminary index by giving an assigned number of points to a win in each class. In Class B, for example, a win is worth 30 points. The total number of points is divided by the total number of games played. The tournament index is then determined by adding the preliminary indices of the schools the team had defeated. That number is then divided by the number of games played.
Heal points eliminated Winslow and left Black Raiders coach Mike Siviski predictably upset.
“We’re not happy. Our kids are turning in equipment now,” Siviski said. “We overcame injuries but we couldn’t overcome things we had no control over.”
Siviski said that the addition of Morse and Leavitt, traditional Western Maine teams, means that Eastern Maine teams are not being adequately represented because of the current system.
“It appears that the Class B playoffs will be two teams from Eastern Maine and six from Western Maine,” Siviski said.
With a three-way tie for second place in Class C, the first criteria was league record, followed by head-to-head competition. The three teams were still tied so the next criteria, Mealey points, were applied.
The Mealey point system assigns a point value to each team according to its record. Victories and losses are given their appropriate values and added up. That total is then added to 100 and multiplied by the original team-point value to get the final Mealey point value.
Stearns was eliminated from the equation and established as the fourth seed.
That left Mattanawcook and Bucksport. The Lynx defeated the Golden Bucks during the regular season, establishing Mattanawcook as the second seed.
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