FHSAA does away with weeklong playoff wait

High school baseball teams in Florida will no longer endure a monthlong journey through regionals to find out if they’ll have a chance to dogpile on the mound at Fort Myers.

The Florida High School Athletic Association announced on Monday, two days after the season ended, that it will implement a new condensed playoff schedule.

The one-game-per-week format of regional rounds seen the past two postseasons has been shoved aside after heavy pushback from the high school baseball community throughout the state. That schedule would essentially allow teams to start one ace pitcher in each game leading up to states.

“FHSAA coaches, athletic directors and member school representatives have voiced their opinion that baseball is not a sport where a program should be able to ride one player all the way to the state semifinals,” an FHSAA spokesperson said in a statement. “The FHSAA is a member-driven association and has listened to its constituents.”

The new system will see small schools in Class 4A-1A play a regional semifinal on a Tuesday and final on Friday to advance to the first week of states. Large schools in Class 9A-5A, which play three rounds to reach the final four, will do a Wednesday-Saturday-Tuesday combination.

The past two seasons, large school playoff teams played on three consecutive Tuesdays. It’s a schedule closer to what was seen in the past, which would be a Thursday-Tuesday-Friday trio of regional games to reach state semifinals. The FHSAA also said an extra week will be allotted for more preseason practice with the idea of improving arm safety for pitchers.

While the benefit of testing teams’ pitching depth is there, the week between regional games did work for schools scheduling postponed games due to weather this past postseason.

dfurones@ sunsentinel.com / @DavidFurones_