6 local teams in play-in round; Kofa, GR baseball left out

San Luis/Cibola baseball, G. Ridge/ YC softball host games today

For five local baseball/ softball teams, the postseason begins today.

For at least two others, it begins later this week.

For two other hopefuls, the postseason never came.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association released the 3A-6A state qualifiers, along with play-in round matchups, Tuesday, and the following played out as expected:

• Cibola softball (6A) is a top-eight seed, and the only local qualifier to avoid the play-in round

• San Luis baseball (No. 12 in 6A), Cibola baseball (No. 16 in 6A), Gila Ridge softball (No. 11 in 4A) and Yuma Catholic softball (No. 12 in 3A) will host play-in games today

• Kofa softball (No. 21 in 6A) and Yuma Catholic baseball (No. 20 in 3A) will hit the road for the play-in round

What wasn’t so expected was that those would be the only seven local teams to get in.

Kofa and Gila Ridge’s baseball teams entered the final day of the regular season squarely on the top-24 bubble — Gila Ridge No. 23 in 4A, Kofa No. 25 in 6A — and then won their finales, but still wound up one spot shy of qualifying.

Whereas Kofa simply stayed put at No. 25 in 6A after beating Sunnyside on Monday, Gila Ridge dropped a spot to No. 24 in 4A after beating Coronado — No. 24 would have been just high enough to qualify, except No. 29 Washington won its region and therefore automatically received a bid.

As for the teams that did get in, San Luis baseball plays No. 21 Westwood, Cibola baseball plays No. 17 Mountain Pointe, Gila Ridge softball plays No. 22 Greenway, Yuma Catholic softball plays No. 21 Coolidge, Kofa softball plays at No. 12 Mountain

Pointe and Yuma Catholic baseball plays at No. 13 Benjamin Franklin.

YC-Benjamin Franklin is scheduled for Friday, while the other five games are today.

The 16-team 2A and 1A state tournament fields will be revealed later this week, as neither conference holds a play-in round. San Pasqual’s baseball team is currently ranked No. 9 in 1A and should qualify, while the Warriors’ softball team is currently on the bubble at No. 15.

Cibola softball also won’t learn its first-round draw until later this week, but the Raiders do know they’ll be hosting a first-round game Saturday.