chesshistory

I believe these are the E/Middle Division 2A scores; not sure about the score in the final game USN-Webb Bell Buckle 5-0 FRA-St Andrews Sewanee 4-0 Webb Knoxville-DCA 1-0 St Cecilia-Mt Juliet Christian Academy (5-0?)

I think the rankings for division 2A E/Mid are off, reflecting prominence in previous years rather than abilities of current teams. I would rank the 4 top teams on this side of the stae in division 2A as follows 1. St Cecilia 2. USN 3. FRA 4. Knoxville Webb and feel this is the most likely order of finish in the region tournament. Would anyone like to predict 2A top 4 in the West?

Sorry for my mistake on St Cecilia vs Page. My point was not to try to knock Page, but to praise St Cecilia. I was wondering how good this team was, went to their webpage, and saw that they had won the tournament by penalty kicks over Page; I just assumed this was a regular game. In any case, I still think that St Cecilia seems to be a strong team which had not been recognized as such in the division 2A ranking

We have been assuming playoffs in the E/Middle region of 2A work as follows. Each division has 5 teams. There is a play-in game for spots 4-5 in each division. The 1st round is presumably play between divisions; team 1 vs team 4/5, 2 vs 3 from the other division. Unless St Andres upsets DCA, I think the 1st rd is St Cecilia vs Mt Juliet/Ezell-Harding. USN vs Davidson/Webb. FRA vs St Andrews. DCA vs Knoxville-Webb. Then I am a bit unsure; if they simply place the teams in a bracket at the beginning, it would be St C winner vs FRA winner, USN winner vs DCA winner; if lower rated teams win, they haven't told us whether they will instead order the teams again by original seeds. All 1st rd winners will have to play a 3d game, to determine which W TN team they play in substate. W team 1 plays Mid/E 4, 2 vs 3, 3 vs 2, 4 vs 1. Perhaps more important, since each of the op 4 W TN teams could beat each other on a given day, the top 2 teams stay at home for substate, while teams 3 and 4 have to travel for their games. Substate winners move on to the state tournament

A hidden story here is a strong team which has gotten no attention. Page is not, in fact, undefeated; they lost a game in a tournament on penalty kicks to St Cecilia. Who is St Cecilia? They are an undefeated team from Nashville in division 2A, yet they were completely forgotten in the rankings. They had been completely overwhelming until their last games, in which they tied FRA and Hume-Fogg, teams they seemed like they could handle easily earlier in the season. St Cecilia moved down into 2A, but everyone out here seemed to think that FRA and Knoxville-Webb were the new teams that would clean up in the lower division. However, FRA and Webb finished 2d and 3d in their division to USN, while St Cecilia was dominant in the other division of 2A East/Middle. Definitely a team to watch for the tournament; for a change, unless there are strange upsets, all 4 teams from both halves of the state will be strong in 2A, and the substate games could be dangerous even for the top teams.