Brad Hall and the Milford Eagles hope to take their No. 6 overall seed to another sectional championship.

Brad Hall and the Milford Eagles hope to take their No. 6 overall seed to another sectional championship.
By Chris Chaney
Sun staff

With at least a share of the Eastern Cincinnati Conference regular-season title solidified for the third consecutive year, the Milford Eagles were awarded the No. 6 overall seed in the Southwest District’s Cincinnati 2 sectional tournament on Sunday, May 3.

The draw meeting, which features all participating coaches from baseball’s four divisions, gives the highest seeded teams the opportunity to pick their spot on the bracket, with the next highest seed following suit, then the third highest seed and so on.

At any point, if a team chooses to pass, the next highest seed will choose their spot in the bracket with the team that passed having the opportunity to go next before going down the line.

In essence, the higher seeded teams are picked as opponents by lower seeded teams and match ups are not necessarily predetermined strictly by seed. That means the second seed could theoretically choose to play the No. 1 seed in the first round.

Milford, with their 17-3 overall record and 11-1 mark in the ECC, was the highest local seed in DI. The Eagles are scheduled to complete their regular season this week. A win on Monday — 7-2 over Kings — guaranteed a share of the ECC title. Games on Tuesday at Glen Este and Wednesday versus Kings could give Milford an outright league title.

Milford will host Withrow, the No. 33 seed, on Tuesday, May 12 in the first round. The winner of (15) St. Xavier and (18) Hamilton will face the Milford/Withrow winner in the sectional semifinal on May 14.

Glen Este, the No. 9 seed in DI, has the opportunity to grab a share of the ECC as well, but will need to have had taken down Milford and Loveland on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those results were not available at press time.

The Trojans play No. 31 Mount Healthy on May 12 with the winner facing the victors of the (11) Loveland and (26) Princeton match up on May 14.

The Southern Buckeye Conference-American Division has been decided heading into the last week of the regular season with Goshen taking the crown following a 9-1 league record.

The Amelia Barons were the runners up at 7-3. At 13-7 overall, Amelia was seeded No. 21 in DI. They will face (17) Walnut Hills in the first round on May 12 with (7) La Salle awaiting the winner in the semifinals.

In Division II, the aforementioned Goshen Warriors received the No. 1 overall seed. The Warriors have three non-conference games remaining on their regular-season slate, which could get them to 18-1 on the season heading into the sectional tournament.

Goshen selected a first-round bye and will play the winner of (9) Talawanda and (11) Taft on Thursday, May 14.

The proprietors of Goshen’s only blemish was the fourth-seeded Batavia Bulldogs. Batavia took down Goshen on April 1, 6-2. Next week, Batavia will face (6) Wyoming with the winner earning a sectional semifinal match up with No. 3 New Richmond.

The Lions are 15-8 overall and 5-5 in the SBC.

In the Division III sectional, four of the top-five in the SBC-National will be in action.

No. 4 Williamsburg was sought out by No. 6 Clermont Northeastern in the sectional semifinal round. The two SBC and Clermont County rivals will play at Burg on Wednesday, May 13 with the winner heading to May 20’s sectional final against the winner of (1) CHCA and (5) Clinton-Massie.

On the other side of the bracket, No. 3 Blanchester will host the winner of Monday, May 11’s 8 vs. 9 match up between Bethel-Tate and East Clinton.

Finally, in Division IV, Felicity-Franklin received the No. 11 seed and chose familiar opponent (6) Georgetown as their first-round opponent.

The Cardinals and G-Men split their season series with Georgetown taking a 5-4 win on April 16 and Felicity evening the score with a 3-2 extra innings win on April 23.

All games will be played at 5 p.m. and hosted by the higher seeded team. Complete tournament brackets for all four divisions can be found on swdab.org.