By Jose Briseno, Castle Country Radio:
Thursday morning marked the official start to the 3A State baseball tournament as the Utah High School Activities Association released the final RPI rankings for the 2022 spring season. The bracket has been released, and the matchups have been set to begin tomorrow, May 6.
The RPI is a mathematical equation that ranks teams by the strength of their schedule and is based on three different parameters: the teams winning percentage , their opponents winning percentage and their opponents’ opponents winning percentage. The equation gives each team a percentage and then those numbers are used to rank each team throughout the season.
Carbon ended the regular season as the Region 12 Champions and secured themselves the No. 4 seed after a 15-8 season. Carbon is set to host a POD site that includes No. 5 Grantsville, No. 12 Summit Academy, and the winner of the Judge Memorial-Ben Lomond matchup. The Dinos will face the winner of the Judge-Ben Lomond match up at 12:00 p.m. on Sautrday. If Carbon is victorious in their first game, they play again Saturday against the winner of the Grantsville-Summit Academy game for a chance to move to the Quarterfinals. If the Dinos fall to Judge/Ben Lomond, they will play again on Saturday at 3:00 p.m..
Two days removed from a win over Union, the Emery Spartans finished the 2022 regular season 12-10 and third in the Region 12 standings. In the final RPI rankings, the Spartans were ranked ninth to set up another match up with the No. 8 Union Cougars in the first round of the tournament. Emery will travel to Juab as the No. 1 Wasps will be the hosts of another POD site. If Emery picks up the win over Union, they will take on the winner of the Juab-Morgan/North Sanpete game immediately after. If they lose, they will take on the loser of the Juab-Morgan/North Sanpete game at 3:00pm the same day. The Emery-Union game is scheduled for a 12:00pm first pitch from Juab High School.
If the Dinos and Spartans advance past the second round, they will move on to the final rounds that will take place at Utah Valley University on May 12-14.
Below is the complete bracket for the 3A baseball classification: