By Matt De George
On a day that was supposed to provide answers, Buzz Wood’s first reaction was a question.
“How am I supposed to explain that to my kids?,” the Chichester coach asked Sunday.
Wood had just seen shocking figures. His team went 14-8, 5-5 in the Del Val League, which provided three of the top 22 seeds in District One Class AAAA.
Yet when the seeding formula spit out its final verdict, Wood’s Eagles weren’t in the top 32. They weren’t 33rd. Or 34th.
In District One’s problematic algorithm, Chichester landed 36th. That they beat Penn Wood didn’t matter. Nor did playing No. 9 seed Chester and No. 18 Academy Park within single-digits. Nor did winning more games than 12 teams in the field. Six of their eight losses came to playoff teams, plus one at the hands of District 3’s 21-win Lampeter-Strasburg. All that was academic.
The Eagles accumulated 70 power points, five per win. But their strength-of-schedule (44.74) was the lowest in District One, per numbers released by the seeding committee. (Those are tentative until Monday at noon.) Chi’s 38.44 bonus points for defeated opponents’ wins was the fewest of any team with double-digit wins.
That doesn’t soften the blow of, for instance, seeing Central Bucks South and its 10-12 record earn the 28th seed.