Greenfield Recorder – MIAA Tournaments: The 2024 Spring Sports Season in Numbers

The 2023-2024 high school sports season is over.

The Recorder area has had one spring state champion in the Turners Falls softball team, which defeated Georgetown in the MIAA Division 5 finals at UMass earlier this month. It was the Thunder’s 11th state title in program history, further bolstering their already-existing state record in the sport.

During the spring season, Pioneer’s baseball team reached its third straight Final Four under coach Kevin Luippold, while Greenfield’s baseball team made a second straight run in the Div. 5 state tournament, this time reaching the semifinals as the No. 15 seed.

Throughout the year, seven Recorder teams reached the state semifinals: Turners volleyball, Frontier volleyball, Pioneer boys basketball, Mahar boys basketball, Pioneer baseball, Greenfield baseball and Turners softball.

Six Recorder teams became Western Mass. champions. crowned: Turners volleyball, Frontier volleyball, Frontier field hockey, Mahar boys basketball, Turners softball and Greenfield softball.

How has the MIAA done in seeding teams this spring?

In baseball, the average seed of the five state champions was 2.2. In softball that number was 2, boys tennis was 1.5, girls tennis was 1.75 and boys volleyball was 1.5. In non-Recorder area sports, boys and girls lacrosse champions registered with an average seed of 1.5.

As for the Final Four, in baseball, the average attendance to reach the semifinals was 5.05. Believe it or not, Greenfield wasn’t the highest-seeded team to get there — that title belonged to Salem, which reached the semifinals in Div. 4 as the No. 24 seed.

Softball had a similar average for its semifinalists, with an average seed of 4.35. The highest-seeded team to reach the Final Four was 21st-seeded King Philip, which made it all the way to the state finals in Div. 1, where it lost to Taunton.

King Phillip was one of three teams to make it to the state title as a double-digit seed team. The other two teams played in ice hockey, with Winchester taking the D1 title as the 11th seed, while Boston Latin was the only state champion with a double-digit seed and the Div. 2 hockey title as the eleventh seed.

Boys lacrosse (3.4), girls lacrosse (3.1), boys tennis (3.3), girls tennis (2.7) and boys volleyball (2.7) once again showed that the MIAA does an excellent job in the top seeding teams, with the Final Four games typically filled by the top seeds.

Since the start of the new statewide tournament format, the MIAA ranks teams in each division, with the top 32 seeds automatically receiving a spot in the field. The MIAA also allows any team with a .500 record or better to enter the tournament, even if they are not in the top 32.

How do those teams that aren’t in the top 32 and still make it into the tournament do? Not so well.

Across the seven spring sports, 175 teams qualified for the tournament thanks to their record despite not being ranked in the top 32. These teams achieved 28-147 in their preliminary round match.

In terms of sports, the 32 non-top baseball teams had a score of 8-30, softball teams a score of 1-42, boys lacrosse teams a score of 4-15, boys tennis teams a score of 6-6, girls tennis teams a score of 3-20 and boys volleyball teams a mark of 3-18.

Looking at the numbers for the year as a whole, the non-top 32 seeds were 27-92 in the preliminary round during the winter season. Broken down by sport, the non-top 32 seeds went 16-42 in boys basketball, 8-43 in girls basketball and 3-7 in field hockey.

In the fall, the non-top 32 seeds went 23-117. By sport, the non-top 32 seeds went 1-3 in hockey, 8-45 in boys soccer, 7-39 in girls soccer and 7-30 in volleyball. Football was the only sport with a hard cutoff, as only the top 16 seeds in each division get a spot in the playoffs.

Over the year, non-top 32 seeds went 78-356 in the preliminary rounds. For percentage purposes, teams seeded in the top 32 had an 82 percent chance of making the Round of 32. When you look at the trips to the state tournament, this is something the MIAA needs to look at.

During the 2023-2024 school year, seven Western Mass schools took home state championships: Turners softball (D5), Longmeadow boys lacrosse (D2), Longmeadow girls tennis (D2), Westfield boys volleyball (D2), Hoosac Valley girls basketball (D5), Monson girls soccer (D5) and Mount Greylock volleyball (D5).

That left Western Mass. with seven of the 74 possible state champions in the three seasons (9.5 percent).