Sectional tourneys pitched at meeting
Postseason idea batted around to MIAA baseball committee
Justin Richards is the baseball coach at Oxford, but he carried a poignant message for all the spring sports at Wednesday’s MIAA Baseball Committee meeting.
Richards spent several minutes in the meeting bringing up the possibility of having sectional tournaments for all of the spring sports teams. He also played upon the fact that this was slated to be the last year of sectional tournaments in all sports as the MIAA is going to a statewide tournament format this September.
“Even if all we can give them is sectionals, let’s give all the kids something to look forward to,” Richards said. “From a historical standpoint, this is the last time for sectional tournaments, the kids and towns deserve it.
“The baseball kids and all of the spring athletes got cut of things last year. We saw that baseball was able to be played safely outdoors last summer. If finances are an issue, then play the sectionals at the higher seeds. Kids would not care as long as they are playing.”
Richards also said he was in favor of a sectional tournament as long as it didn’t cut into a regular-season schedule. That’s one thing that does bother MIAA Baseball Committee Chairman Jay Costa, the athletic director at Shrewsbury High.
“I have mixed feelings about this,” Costa said. “What I really want is to get the athletes out there and playing as many games as possible.”
MIAA Baseball Committee liaison Keith Brouillard suggested to put together a subcommittee to look into what a spring baseball season might look like. He also recommended that they create three different scenarios — what a tournament might look like in a pod, a sectional and a state format.
Earlier in the meeting, there was a proposal put forth by Drew Tripp, a cofounder of Change Up, a company which tracks pitch counts. This has become important since Massachusetts will be going to a pitch count starting this spring.
The aim is to accurately and comprehensively track safety-driven pitching restrictions. It would also provide baseball organizations with a simple-to-use -platform that allows realtime tracking of pitch loads and performance to enhance player safety and improve success.
In the final topic of the day, official speak, Super 8 tournament director Don Fredericks asked where balls and strikes would be called from (behind the plate or behind the mound) and who would make the final determination.