High school baseball rankings: Four MaxPreps Top 25 teams set to battle for California Southern Section Division 1 title

California's Southern Section Division 1 playoffs begin today after seedings and first-round matchups were announced Monday. Now in its second year using a computer-based playoff seeding system, the Southern Section has produced brackets that look noticeably different from this week's MaxPreps Top 25 high school baseball rankings.

Rankings — whether computer-generated or determined by humans — are a lot like pizza. There are many ways to bake but the basic ingredients are usually the same and the final product often looks similar. Which version people prefer usually comes down to personal taste.

The Southern Section playoff format uses a competitive-equity model combined with the Massey Ratings. The system was developed by Kenneth Massey, an assistant professor of mathematics at Carson-Newman University in Tennessee, and is designed to measure past performance. It is similar to, though not identical to, the MaxPreps computer rankings.

Human rankings also evaluate past performance but often weigh additional factors that computers do not fully account for. Injuries, head-to-head results, schedule difficulty (not necessarily strength of schedule), frequency of games, long-term program success and even recruiting rankings can influence the thought process.

That helps explain why the Southern Section seedings differ so much from the MaxPreps Top 25. In the Division 1 bracket, Norco earned the No. 1 seed followed by Harvard-Westlake (Studio City) at No. 2, Orange Lutheran (Orange) at No. 4 and St. John Bosco (Bellflower) at No. 6.

The MaxPreps Top 25 lists those same teams in nearly the opposite order. Trinity League champion St. John Bosco is ranked No. 6 nationally followed by Trinity League runner-up Orange Lutheran at No. 7, Harvard-Westlake at No. 8 and Norco at No. 13.

None of this is meant to argue that one system is better than the other. Ultimately, the playoffs will settle that debate on the field. There is more than one way to make a pizza.

The rest of the MaxPreps Top 25 rankings held pretty much true to form with only three teams dropping out this week. Joining the rankings are a pair of Texas 6A teams, Midland and Rouse (Leander), along with Berkeley Prep (Tampa, Fla.).

Game of the Week

South Walton (Santa Rosa Beach, Fla.) 2, Suwannee (Live Oak, Fla.) 1: The Seahawks held off a late rally by Suwannee thanks to the pitching of All-American candidate Coleman Borthwick to win their series opener last week. After extending its lead to 2-0 in the bottom of the sixth, South Walton gave up a single, committed an error and allowed another single to allow Suwannee to put the tying run in scoring position. But Borthwick struck out the next two batters to end the game. Borthwick finished the night with 13 strikeouts.

Game to Watch

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Originally published by maxpreps.com. Reporting by https://www.maxpreps.com/news/writer/kevin-askeland/?id=842e75da-aaa8-404d-9619-5abec6b51167. Read the full story at maxpreps.com.