Scrambled eggs: Southeast League postseason matchups still up in the air

Calling all mathematicians and prognosticators.

 

Please report to the Southeast League football standings.

 

With still one week remaining in the regular season, there are still numerous possibilities for the order of finish in clearly the closest Class 4A football league in Southern Nevada.

 

The rest of the playoff picture in Class 4A and in the smaller schools is elsewhere on this site. But it took a little extra time, and a lot of paper and ink to figure out all of the Sunrise Region potential finishes.

 

Trying to make them easily understandable ... well, that’s something else entirely.

 

The seeds: Las Vegas (No. 1), Canyon Springs (No. 2), Desert Pines (No. 3), Valley (No. 4)

 

Let’s go with the easy part first.

 

Las Vegas (5-0) wrapped up the No. 1 seed after narrowly defeating Desert Pines on Thursday. The Wildcats would win a tiebreaker over Canyon Springs based off their head-to-head meeting.

 

Canyon Springs (4-1) beat Desert Pines and is the No. 2 seed.

 

Desert Pines (3-2) beat Valley (notice the theme yet?) and is the No. 3 seed.

 

Valley (3-3) beat Rancho (2-3) and has clinched the final spot.

 

Even if a three-way tie were to occur between Desert Pines, Valley and Rancho at 3-3, the Jaguars beat both teams and would get the No. 3 seed. Under Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association tiebreaker procedures, Valley and Rancho would revert to a two-way tie for fourth, which Valley would win.

 

Who’s in: Basic, Del Sol, Liberty

 

Who can still get in: Foothill, Silverado

 

Basic and Del Sol are both 4-1 in league. Del Sol won the head-to-head meeting.

 

And that means Del Sol controls its own destiny. If the Dragons beat Coronado next week, Del Sol will be the No. 1 seed.

 

Basic hosts Foothill in a likely must-win game for the Falcons.

 

So far, pretty easy. Now for the confusing part.

 

Liberty has finished league play 4-2. Foothill is 3-2. If Foothill beats Basic and Coronado beats Del Sol, we have a four-way tie at 4-2.

 

Two games have a factor in who wins the league — Foothill at Basic and Coronado at Del Sol. There are four possible outcomes of these two games, so let’s take a look at each one and see what happens.

 

Scenario No. 1: Basic and Del Sol win. Del Sol and Basic would finish 5-1. Del Sol would be the No. 1 seed, Basic the No. 2, Liberty the No. 3 and either Silverado or Foothill the No. 4 (more on that one in a bit).

 

Scenario No. 2: Basic wins and Del Sol loses. Basic would finish 5-1 and be the No. 1 seed. Del Sol and Liberty would tie at 4-2, and

 

Liberty would win that tiebreaker because it beat Del Sol, so the Patriots would be the No. 2 seed, Del Sol the No. 3 and either Silverado or Foothill the No. 4.

Scenario No. 3: Basic loses and Del Sol wins. Del Sol is the outright champion at 5-1. The Basic loss means Foothill has to win, so Basic, Foothill and Liberty would all be 4-2 and tie for second.

 

Foothill would have beaten both Liberty and Basic and would get the No. 2 seed. Basic’s win over Liberty would give it the No. 3 seed and leave the Patriots at No. 4.

 

Scenario No. 4: Basic and Del Sol both lose. Here’s our four-way tie at 4-2. To break it, we go with head-to-head records among those four teams. Del Sol and Foothill would be 2-1, Basic and Liberty would be 1-2.

 

Del Sol and Foothill would go to a two-team tie for first and because Del Sol won the head-to-head meeting, Del Sol would be the No. 1 seed.

 

Under NIAA rules, instead of making Foothill the No. 2 seed, we’d go to a three-way tie between Foothill, Liberty and Basic. It’s the same tie as in Scenario No. 3 and would work out the same way.

 

So we’re done? Not quite.

 

There’s still one other tie that could take place and one other team that could get into the field.

 

Silverado is 2-3 and can still make the playoff field, but there’s only one way that can happen.

 

Silverado must beat Green Valley and Foothill must lose to Basic. That would leave Silverado and Foothill tied for fourth place at 3-3, and Silverado’s win on Thursday night over the Falcons would get the Skyhawks into the postseason.

 

Now you know why it took an extra day to figure all of this out.