By Michael Letendre
The pairings are now set in stone for the girls Central Connecticut Conference Girls Basketball Tournament and the two public schools in Bristol will be in the mix.
The teams that earned a chance to compete in the top tier will battle for the CCC Tournament title and Bristol Eastern is one of those top eight seeds.
The Lancers (10-2) nabbed the eighth and final seed in the championship bracket and squares off against No. 1 Newington in a can’t miss opening round showdown.
Game time is set for 5:30 p.m. Monday night from Newington High School as all home games in the postseason are scheduled to be played at the higher seed.
Eastern needed a little luck to get that seed due to a low lot draw which was used as a tie-breaking device by the CCC.
Teams were seeded by winning percentage, then head-to-head play and finally by lot.
Six teams with 10-2 records were in the rankings this year and the Lancers were one of those programs.
At one point, Eastern was tied with Southington (10-2), Plainville (9-3), and Farmington (8-4) in the standings and the Lancers needed some help to get in.
Help meant other teams beating Plainville and Farmington because each program had a better lot number than Eastern.
If all those squads ended up tied with the Lancers when tournament time was about to commence, the Kingstreeters would have been a featured team in the second bracket.
Eastern was 7-2, along with Plainville, Farmington, and Southington at one point, with three games left to play in the regular season.
The Lancers won out, as did Southington – who bounced Plainville (57-43) and Farmington (47-38) – to earn championship round seeds.
That meant Plainville and Farmington were going to be forced into the second bracket.
And, along with Eastern, the championship tier is completely stacked.
Windsor (11-1) is the number two seed in the tournament while Simsbury (11-1) is third due to head-to-head play.
Southington (10-2) earned the fourth seed and drew the highest position of the remaining 10-2 programs due to lot.
No. 5 East Hartford, No. 6 Middletown, and No. 7 Edwin O. Smith round out the top bracket.
If Eastern can get past Newington, the Lancers would be on the road at the winner of Southington/East Hartford.
Bristol Central earned the No. 27 seed overall (No. 3 in the fourth bracket) and that meant a home seed on Tuesday night against No. 30 Bulkeley (No. 6 in tier 4, 0-11 overall).
The Rams (2-10) earned the third seed in the final bracket due to its two wins over Lewis Mills this year.
Each team is guaranteed two games in postseason play while the winner and runner up in each bracket will play three times.
The finals of the other three brackets will not be playing for a title.
GIRLS BASKETBALL PAIRINGS
Championship Bracket
Round 1 – March 22
#8 Bristol Eastern at #1 Newington
#5 East Hartford at #4 Southington
#6 Middletown at #3 Simsbury
#7 EO Smith at #2 Windsor
Bracket No. 2
Round 1 March 22
#8 Berlin at #1 Glastonbury
#5 Conard at #4 Farmington
#6 Enfield at #3 Wethersfield
#7 Manchester at #2 Plainville
Bracket No. 3
Round 1 March 23
#8 Hartford Public at #1 Hall
#5 Rocky Hill at #4 Platt
#6 RHAM at #3 New Britain
#7 East Catholic at #2 South Windsor
Bracket No. 4
Round 1 March 23
#8 BYE at #1 Avon
#5 Maloney at #4 Lewis Mills
#6 Bulkeley at #3 Bristol Central
#7 Tolland at #2 NW Catholic
