5A Metro doesn't deserve any teams in the postseason

By Justin Janssen '11

If you look at some of the records of the 5A Metro teams, you might think they were good.

Alhambra (18-6), Trevor Browne (24-6), and Maryvale (15-9) all qualified for the 5A-I postseason, but if you look closer, you'd see their records are inflated by playing a high amount of regional games.

Each team played 16 regional games and some teams played even more games against the Metro Region in tournaments.

The result was anywhere from 60 to 81 percent of a team's schedule against their own region.

The rest of the region's records are: North (13-14-1), Fairfax (11-13), South Mountain (10-17), Hayden (5-20-1), Central (2-25), and Camelback (1-20).

Against other regions, the 5A Metro is a combined 22-53 (29 win pct.), with 9 of those wins coming from Trevor Browne.

The website Maxpreps.com, America's source for high school sports, agrees with my premise that the 5A Metro doesn't deserve a postseason team.

Out of the 31 teams in 5A-I it had the Metro schools ranked 19th (Trevor Browne), 26th, 28th, and 29th.

Out of the 32 teams in 5A-II maxpreps.com ranked all five metro schools lower than 26th.

In the playoffs, the result has been catastrophic, with all three teams losing their first round games by 10 or more runs.

After Brophy's 18-2 shellacking of Alhambra, I asked Brophy head coach Mr. Tom Succow if he thought Alhambra was among the top 16 teams in 5A-I (that's how many teams qualify for the postseason).

He said, "You know what, they are. They wouldn't have won all those games and wouldn't have been here if they didn't do something right."

I should of mentioned that the 5A Metro Region champion (Alhambra) won only one game all season against a non-Metro squad.