Baseball playoffs are set to go off

La Plata is No. 1 seed in Class 3A South; reigning champ Stone is 4A East’s 8th seed

Friday, May 9, 2008

That means La Plata has homefield advantage throughout regionals with its first playoff test coming in Monday’s quarterfinals versus either Chopticon or Lackey at 4 p.m. La Plata is among five teams in the 3A South with a first-round bye.

First-round playoff action is scheduled to begin today with 4 p.m. games.

‘‘We’ve also got to realize now, if you look at our region – like Great Mills with two outstanding pitchers, Chopticon a very good pitcher in the [Steven] Shorter kid, Huntingtown is a very good ball club – it doesn’t matter that we’re the first [seed]. We’ve got to play,” said La Plata head coach Dan DeVitis, whose club started the spring on fire with 14 straight wins, then was upset twice in a row last week by Thomas Stone and Great Mills before finishing the regular season with back-to-back wins. ‘‘Anybody in the region can beat anybody.”

About being the heavy favorite in a region with seven SMAC teams and four Prince George’s County clubs, DeVitis added: ‘‘I think we’ve had the target on our back all year, because we came out of the gate so fast. I never talk about favorites. I let the newspapers do that. My players are very, very level-headed, and they know my philosophy of taking one step at a time. If you look ahead, you get knocked off.”

Calvert (12-6), which had a 1-0 lead through five innings on La Plata in both teams’ regular season finale Tuesday and nearly stole the SMAC title, earned a No. 3 seed in the 2A South.

Calvert excelled during the latter half of the regular season and found itself playing for the league banner – in a game that initially appeared a week prior to be a meaningless tuneup for regionals before La Plata slumped down the stretch.

Nonetheless, La Plata’s 3-1 comeback win – finally cracking the near-unhitable stuff of Calvert ace Brandon Crigger with all its run production during a sixth-inning rally – sends the defending 2A South champion into the playoffs on a losing note.

‘‘If we play like that the next week and a half, I’ll take our chances,” Calvert head coach Travis Mister said, remaining upbeat about his team’s performance in spite of suffering a heartbreaker to La Plata on the cusp of the postseason. ‘‘There are two ways to look at [losing to La Plata] – you can be disappointed, or you can look at it to where you played your way to this point. You played an excellent game [against La Plata], and it just wasn’t enough. I don’t think it will be a problem [going into the playoffs]. We had some guys that were there last year and know what it takes to win the region.

‘‘We’re playing solid baseball at the right time of the year. We’re hitting. Our pitching’s doing an excellent job.”

Huntingtown, the two-time reigning 3A South champion, is the fourth seed in the region. It hosts fifth-seeded Great Mills on Monday at 4 p.m. in the quarterfinals, as both teams garnered byes in the opening round.

Leonardtown (11-6) is the highest-seeded SMAC team in the 4A East at the randomly placed No. 5 spot. A solid season as a SMAC contender has Leonardtown limping into the playoffs with two straight losses – getting upset Monday and Tuesday, respectively, by North Point, 6-5, and Westlake, 6-2.

‘‘If we can hit with runners in scoring position, we have a good chance of doing well in the region,” said Leonardtown head coach Ray Sapp, whose club left 12 men on base against Westlake. ‘‘Our pitching has done well all year long. Our region is tough, but anybody can come out of it.

‘‘Is there a clear-cut favorite? No. There are several teams that could come out of the region, and we feel we’re one of those teams. [Our fifth seed] is a random seed, but if you look at the region, we were the fifth-best.”

Sapp added that though 4A East top seed Arundel is good, it has only two fewer losses than his club.

Thomas Stone (9-10), seeded eighth in the 4A East, is the reigning regional champion.

Stone enters the playoffs as a dangerous team – much like last year – with three wins in its last four games, including victories over La Plata and Huntingtown.

Playoff-rich Stone has a SMAC-best 12 regional titles in its history.

After a first-round bye, Leonardtown visits fourth-seeded North County, of Anne Arundel County, Monday at 4 p.m. in the quarterfinals.

‘‘I would compare North County to one of the top SMAC teams, so we can compete with this team,” said Sapp, whose club fell to its Anne Arundel opponent two years ago in the playoffs by one run.