The draw format for selecting teams still endures, with the big rule being that teams from the same district can’t meet in the quarterfinals or semifinals. So with all that in mind, who were the big winners and losers from Saturday’s draw?

Winner: North. After a 7-1 start, North sputtered to an 8-15 finish, losing in the district finals to Caldwell in a game where Lady Maroons were playing catch-up from the get-go. Nevertheless, North drew the lone sub-.500 district winner, Livingston Central, whom they beat at home. 45-39, in the Hancock Bank Classic on Dec. 20. It’ll still be an interesting test, given North’s recent proclivity for only playing well after they’ve dug themselves a hole: in the Livingston game, North had to rally from 27-17 down in the third quarter. Fortunately, for North, the Lady Cardinals have not exactly been world-beaters as of late, losing eight in a row (seven by double digits) before returning to their 5th District safe harbor last week, winning those two tournament games to cap off a 9-0 record within the 5th and win the title. Take out those games and Livingston has been riding an eight-game losing streak in non-5th District regional action since a season-opening two-point win over a Hopkins County Central team that probably would’ve won had the game taken place in the second half of the season.

Loser: Christian. The Lady Colonels bottomed out with a seven-game losing streak in late January/early Feb., but perked up at the end of the season and upset Hopkins County Central and Hopkinsville. That latter win put them in regionals, but the journey looks like it’s going to end Thursday, as Christian has been saddled with the top team in the region, 6th District champ Henderson (23-2). Henderson beat Christian, 72-22, on Jan. 4, and its losses are to teams with 22 and 32 wins.

Winner: Henderson. The Lady Colonels are in a bracket with three sub-.500 teams, meaning they can coast until the finals, where they’ll face the survivor of the other bracket’s Webster/Caldwell/UHA pileup.

Loser: Caldwell. The Lady Tigers are rewarded for their 21-win, 7th District championship season with Webster, a team that beat them 66-34 and 66-43 this year.

The tournament starts Wednesday at Caldwell at 6 p.m. with a North/Livingston – Henderson/Christian doubleheader.

How to change that? Perhaps the answer lies in the 6th District, which due to its three-team setup, gives a bye to its regular-season champion in its district tournament, sending it right on to the title game. Since all district title game participants qualify for the 2nd Region tournament, it’s the only situation in which a 2nd Region team can quailfy for the regionals during the regular season.

So, step one: make the regular season meaningful by realigning the 2nd Region into five three-team districts. Here’s my stab at such a setup:

5th District
Livingston Central
Trigg
Lyon

6th District
Henderson
Webster
Union

7th District
North
Central
Caldwell

8th District A
Christian
Hopkinsville
UHA

8th District B
Fort Campbell
Dawson Springs
Crittenden

(I’m not actually suggesting anything by calling them 8th District “A” and “B” here — they need names, that’s all, and it’s less confusing than calling one District 9, which is already part of a different region.)

One good thing about this alignment is that it would get Dawson and Fort Campbell out of districts where they are often the worst team, placing them with a consistently below-average school in Crittenden in order to get them playing winnable games in late February. And it would force all districts to seed, thus lending some stakes to every district contest.

In this setup, the regular-season winners from each of the districts would automatically get regional berths, with the other five spots going to whomever they face in the district title games. Ten teams would qualify for regionals under this setup, instead of the current eight, extending more teams’ seasons while making their regular seasons more meaningful.

It would complicate regionals somewhat, forcing the addition of an opening round in which four of the teams would play each other. I’d seed the five district winners 1 to 5 and the district runner-ups 6 to 10 and have No. 7 play No. 10 and No. 8 face No. 9 in this round. Any number of methods could be used to determine the precise seeding: I’d recommend something along the lines of what they do for district football tiebreakers — reward teams for wins against tougher opponents. Maybe even place a premium on games against other 2nd Region opponents, something like that.

Just for fun, what might such a setup have looked like this year? Let’s start with the girls. Using KHSAA regular-season tiebreakers, Caldwell would’ve won the regular season in the 7th, not North, so the semifinal would have been North vs. Central, which given the teams’ performances in the second half of the season, would’ve been a tight contest.

The 8th “A” probably wouldn’t have been any different, except that regular-season/tourney winner UHA would’ve only had to play one tourney game instead of two. The 5th tournament probably would’ve suffered somewhat, since Crittenden’s 31-29 loss to Lyon was the only close game of the tournament. (It would’ve been supplanted by a third meeting between Trigg and a Lyon team that had already blown them out twice this season.)

The 8th “B” would’ve sent Fort Campbell as its regular-season champ (they beat both Dawson and Crittenden) and challenged Dawson to try and pull a third close win out over the Rockets.

My guess is that such a system would’ve produced this regional seeding: 1) Henderson 2) UHA 3) Caldwell 4) Livingston Central 5) Ft. Campbell 6) Webster 7) North 8) Christian 9) Lyon 10) Dawson. North would’ve been penalized somewhat for its late-season slump, though fate would’ve still pencilled in a date with Dawson, this time in the regionals. Lyon and Christian, who didn’t play each other this year, would’ve been the other regional first-round matchup.

As far as the boys go, my guess as to a regional seeding would be: 1) Hopkinsville 2) Henderson 3) North 4) Trigg 5) Crittenden 6) Webster 7) Lyon 8) Christian 9) Caldwell 10) Fort Campbell. That could be a doozy of a first round: Lyon and Fort Campbell’s two games against each other were decided by five or less points, and Caldwell and Christian (who did not meet this year) are separated by three games in the standings. Two promising quarterfinal matchups would await if the seeds held, too: North/Webster and Trigg/Crittenden.

In short, the benefits would be more region-qualifying teams (and more underdogs), more of a point to the regular season, and a shift of some of the do-or-die district tourney games to the regionals.

Here now is The Messenger’s low-budget equivalent: the 6th District Boys Tournament Seeding Machine. No fancy code, no awesome graphics, just the eight charts I used to resolve the various scenarios for one of my stories in today’s The Messenger. H/U (Henderson/Union), W/U (Webster/Union), and W/H (Webster/Henderson) represent the final three games to be played in the 6th District, with the hypothetical winner in bold face and what the district records would be in that scenario. “Final seed” is how the teams would be ordered if the boldfaced scenario played out, with the No. 1 seed getting a bye to the district title game and an automatic spot in the 2nd Region playoffs.

Current record       H/U   W/U   W/H   Final seed

Henderson 2-0       3-0    3-0     3-1       2

Webster  1-1         1-1    2-1     3-1       1

Union 0-2             0-3     0-4     0-4       3

Current record      H/U    W/U    W/H    FS

Hendo 2-0            3-0     3-0      4-0     1

Webster  1-1        1-1     2-1      2-2     2

Union 0-2            0-3     0-4      0-4      3

Current record     H/U    W/U      W/H  FS

Hendo 2-0           3-0     3-0       4-0    1

Webster 1-1        1-1      1-2      1-3    3

Union   0-2          0-3     1-3      1-3     2

Current record    H/U    W/U     W/H   FS

Hendo 2-0          3-0     3-0      3-1     1

Webster 1-1       1-1     1-2      2-2      2

Union 0-2           0-3   0-4        0-4     3

Current record   H/U    W/U    W/H    FS

Hendo 2-0         2-1     2-1     2-2      3

Webster 1-1      1-1     1-2     2-2       2

Union 0-2          1-2     2-2     2-2      1

Current record  H/U   W/U    W/H    FS

Hendo 2-0        2-1    2-1     3-1      1

Webster 1-1     1-1     1-2     1-3     3

Union 0-2         1-2    2-2     2-2      2

Current record  H/U   W/U  W/H    FS

Hendo 2-0       2-1     2-1    2-2      2

Webster 1-1     1-1    2-1     3-1      1

Union 0-2        1-2     1-3    1-3      3

Current record  H/U   W/U   W/H   FS

Hendo 2-0        2-1    2-1    3-1     1

Webster 1-1     1-1    2-1    2-2     2

Union  0-2        1-2    1-3    1-3    3

Logan 15 13 25 13 66
Central 21 16 18 8 63

Scoring: Logan — Lindsey 20, Hardison 18, Powell 9, Cates 6, Barnett 5, Jones 3, Mason 2, Barnes 2, Alvis 1. Central — Smith 17, Stafford 11, White 10, Childress 6, Lyric Campbell 4, Copeland 4, Jarrett 4, Lacora Campbell 3, Lacara Campbell 2, Gordon 2.

3-pointers: Logan — Hardison 4, Central — Lacora Campbell. Lyric Campbell.

In the survey, they asked the respondents to pick whether or not 2, 3, or 4 teams qualify out of each district, whether there’d be an extra game to accomodate the No. 3 seeds in a three-team setup, and whether the bracketing should be across districts or within the district. If you’re curious, our local coaches/admins responded as follows:

Mike Quinn (Madisonville-North Hopkins athletic director) – 4 teams. yes to the extra game, cross-bracketing

Nancy Oldham (Hopkins County Central AD) – 3 teams, no, within district

Will Weaver (then North coach) – 4 teams, no, cross

DeDe Ashby (North principal) – 4 teams, yes, cross

Matt Bell (Webster County AD) – 4 teams, yes, cross

Hays Browning (then Webster coach) – 4 teams, yes, cross

Tim Roy (Webster principal) – 4 teams, yes, cross

North and Central are in Class 4A, and the coaches in that class were in favor of a 4-team setup by a 66-10-24 margin over the three-team and two-team arrangements. Overall, the coaches in all classes favored the status quo, 46-21-32, with none of the six classes favoring anything other than the current 4-team setup. Among all respondents – coaches, ADs, etc. – four teams were the preferred pick, 50-20-30.

The cross-bracketing question was more split, with 54 percent of respondents wanting to stay within the district. Class 4A coaches supported within-bracketing 79-21, and coaches as a whole went 89-11 in favor.

This might be a case of be careful of what you wish for: Had within-bracketing been in place this year, it would’ve meant a tougher first-round game for North, who would’ve drawn Lone Oak (7-3) instead of Allen County-Scottsville (3-7).

Well, the playoff brackets have been released and the news is even better for the Maroons.

As anticipated in Tuesday’s edition of The Messenger, North has ACS (3-7) as its first-round opponent Friday on the road, but North actually ended up in the bracket with district champ Owensboro. Assuming a win for North and a win for Owensboro over Breckenridge County (1-9), North would get a rematch with an O’boro team they beat 13-9 at home on Sept. 21. (This game would be on the road, however.)

Lone Oak, on the other hand, gets Franklin Simpson (3-7) in the No. 2 vs. 3 game, but a win there draws them the likely “reward” of having to face 10-0 Warren East, one of two undefeated teams in all of Class 4A, in the second round.

All told, it’s shaping up to be a good year for the 4A, District 1 North is in, as three of its teams seem likely to advance to the second round, and one is almost guaranteed to advance to the third round. With Calloway County at 5-5, four of its five teams are at .500 at better, as opposed to District 2, where everybody but Warren East is under .500.

Some other interesting tidbits about the football playoffs:

1) Two teams are in despite not having won a game. Phelps, from 1A District 8, is 0-9, while 2A District 3′s Clinton County is playoff bound at 0-10. Nine one-win teams made it as well.

2) Misleadingly close-looking 1 vs. 4 playoff matchup: That would be 2A, District 1 winner Caldwell County varsus No. 4 District 2 finisher Butler County. Caldwell is 7-3, BC is 6-4, but BC has feasted on some weak non-district opponents, with wins over two one-win teams, one one-win team and a three-win team. Their two district wins came against Todd County Central (2-8) and winless McLean County.

Caldwell, by contrast, swept District 1 with victories over Murray (8-2) and Ballard Memorial (6-3). They also beat a decent Union County team (5-5), which BC couldn’t do.

3) A little further down in North’s 4A bracket is District 4, notable for being the only district in the state without a team over .500. Western (4-6) needed nothing more than its four district wins to win the title, with Doss (4-6) and Nelson County (5-5) behind them. Fairdale (3-7) is the fourth qualifier, with two other 3-7 teams not making the cut.

4) Worst-team, recordwise, to get a home playoff game? That would be Holy Cross (Louisville), 2-8 overall, but 2-1 in district.

5) And finally, best team to play on the road? Sorry, 5A District 3 third-place finisher Grayson County. An 8-2 record only goes so far. A one-point loss to Jeffersontown gets you a trip to Bullitt Central (6-4).

Owensboro
def. Lafayette 7 wins
Calloway 5
Daviess 5
Apollo 2
Total: 19

Lone Oak
def. Marshall 5
Calloway 5
Reidland 4
Hopkinsville or Heath 3

Total: 17

North
def. Calloway 5
Union 5
Hopkinsville 3
Crittenden 3
Total: 16

North came into Friday locked into the third spot, with the best they could being a tie with Lone Oak (they’d lose the next two tiebreakers) and one point short of Owensboro. Owensboro could’ve made it easier on themselves by beating Henderson, since Lone Oak themselves won to give themselves the next tiebreaker in the process, but Marshall’s loss to Graves on Thursday made things easier as it deprived Lone Oak of a valuable point in the tiebreaker. Hopkinsville’s loss tonight to Fort Campbell became a second point lost to Lone Oak, and Daviess’ win over Ohio put a point in the O’boro column to cement the tiebreaker win.

Next week’s playoff matchups will look like this, then:

No. 1 Owensboro (6-4) vs. No. 4 Breckenridge (1-9)
No. 2 Lone Oak (7-3) vs. No. 3 Franklin Simpson (3-7)
No. 3 North (6-4) at No. 2 Allen County-Scottsville (3-7)
No. 4 Calloway (5-5) at No. 1 Warren East (10-0)

“For Austin, we would have let him try one earlier — he missed one, he made the second one — but I was a little nervous and apprehensive about it because he wasn’t able to make it to practice all week because of soccer (North advanced to the semifinals in the regional tournament and due to weather, had to play their regional semifinal over two nights). Obviously, I wanted to kick the field goal early on — it was right at the 26-yard line — but we’re talking quite a long field goal there, even though it was right in his range …. I think now with soccer over and Austin spending more time with us, we can do a lot more.”

John: You have to play everybody in your district to seed. So Dawson Springs, Hopkins County Central and Caldwell are in our districts, because the state aligned soccer with basketball. Therefore, I don’t schedule Union County anymore, because they’re not in our district. I did leave Webster on, because they wonted to play us. So those games are just given.

Even though the Owensboro schools aren’t in our region anymore, they almost always usually have quality schools and quality programs, and plus, they’re an hour away. And then Henderson, which is not in our district but is a big rival to us, so that’s a given.

So you take the Owensboro games—that’s four games, you take Hendo, that’s five and then add the three teams in our district, that’s 8.

Some games are just there. Hopkinsville is not in our district, but it’s 35-40 minutes down the road, so they’re always going to be on our schedule. They got a quality school, quality program and the coach is a friend of mine. University Heights, again, they always seem to put together a decent team — they’re 45 minutes down the road. Ohio County, same way, they’ve got a good program. So you’ve got 12 games that you’re almost always going to have on your schedule.

What I don’t want to get into when I look at the schedule is imbalance. If I play a tough game, maybe put someone in there where we think we can win. Looking at my schedule, we’re in two tourneys early, so we’re going to play good teams: Greenwood, Murray, Marshall, Henry County and then Greenwood again. So we’re top-heavy, mostly due to the tournaments. Looking at my schedule, I didn’t do such a good job. Sometimes, it’s inevitable.

And then of course, we try to coordinate with the boys, and avoid the same home dates we have (since we share a home field.)

You add the tournaments we’re in, that gives you about 15 games, and then there’s the Donley Classic, where I bring in a team from the West and two teams east of Elizabethown to play. So that’s about 18 games.

As for tournaments, I’ve been doing it so long that for example, Marshall County has some of the best facilities in the state. So I know we’re going to play on quality surfaces, the distances are pretty close, and plus I’m not going to have to travel to Louisville or Lexington. Those teams are coming there. So we want to reach out and play a variety of teams as much as we can.

For the Donley Classic, last year we had the same 2 teams and when they got through with the tournament, they were quality teams and they were well coaches, they approached me and said ‘We’d like to come back next year.’ Normally, I don’t do that, I usually open it to someone else, but I said, OK that’s fine.

But normally, we have a coaches Listserv and I send an e-mail out to all the coaches in the state and invite them to this tournament. Usually, it’s first-come, first-served, and usually in the next 15 minutes, I have two teams who want to play.

These dates are corresponding dates over the years. Let’s say they’re playing Hendo on a certain date. Maybe they’ve been playing on that corresponding date for 10 years, I can’t just go in and wreck that date. When we all try to stay on corresponding dates, it works best.

1st quarter
Russellville (1st/10 Central 36) Barrett Croslin intercepted by Jordan Allen at 26 yard line; ball returned to Central 36
Central (1st/10 Central 36) Austin Franklin minus-2-yard pass to Chris Campbell
Central (2nd/12 Central 34) Issac Dunlap minus-2-yard run
Central (3rd/14 Franklin intercepted by Christian Naylor at Russellville 48, run back to Russellville 49)
(Russellville scores a TD four plays later)

2nd quarter
Russellville (1/10 Russellville 48) Coco Darden 1-yard run, fumble, recovered by Central’s Jacob Browning at Russellville 49)
Central (1/10 Russellville 49) Franklin intercepted by Darden

3rd quarter
Central (4/4 Central 46) Campbell 50-yard punt, no return
(Russellville’s next drive: 12 plays, 94 yards, 1 touchdown)

Central ventured inside the Russellville 10-yard-line at the end of both halves, but threw interceptions, with Josh Utley having taken over at QB by that point. Prior to that last drive of the first half, Central was flirting with negative yardage on offense, with five combined yards on seven drives.

Hard to see where Central goes from here, but the good news for them is that they’re no worse in the win-loss column than Madisonville-North Hopkins, who dropped to 0-3 with their 21-15 loss to North Hardin. Those two play at Central on Oct. 5.