By Michael Letendre
Are you ready for the Connecticut American Legion state championship tournament?
It’s just about upon us as the regular season concluded on August 1 and the single elimination Tournament begins two days later.
Here’s the deal with state tournament play that commences on August 3:
*Thirty-two teams total qualify: six each from Zones 1 and 3, five each from Zone 2 and 6 and eight from Zone 4.
*All teams that qualified and lost in the regional qualifier will qualify for state tournament play.
Teams that are playing in the National Regional Tournament will not be able to play in the state tournament and will not be included in determining the qualifying teams from a zone.
*In addition, host teams will qualify if they are not an automatic qualifier in their zone.
If the host team qualifies, then the next best record based on winning percentage will fill the host spot.
*If more than thirty-two teams qualify under these rules, a play-in round involving the lowest seeded teams will be held on Monday, August 2 to trim the field down.
*The champions in Zones 1, 3 and 6 will be seeded one through three in the North region based on winning percentage and the second place teams will be seeded four through six.
*The champions in Zones 2 and 4 will be seeded one and two in the South region based on winning percentage and the second place teams will be seeded 3 and 4 in the South.
*All remaining teams will be seeded within their region based on winning percentage.
*The host team, or the team that fills that slot, will be the 16th seed in each region.
*Two teams from the North will need to be moved to the South to balance the regions. The state tournament committee will determine which teams will be moved based on competitive balance and geography.
*Games over August 3-4 will be played at the site of the higher seeded team.
From there, games on August 5-6 will commence at South Windsor (North) and Meriden (South).
Seeding information will be available in TBE over the next couple days.
