The CIF Northern California Regional Championship is set to begin Tuesday after brackets for baseball and softball were made available Sunday.
Every Northern Section champion, and two runners-up, received a bid into the three-round tournament that will be played Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday at 4 p.m. each day. There are five separate divisions, most with eight teams, the highest seed hosting throughout.
West Valley baseball gifted No. 2 seed in Division IV
The Eagles will host at least one, and potentially two home regional playoff games if they can advance past No. 7 seed Arcata.
Reigning from the North Coast Section, receiving an auto-bid after a Division V section title, the Tigers are a 17-win team that won seven of eight to close the season. They will make the roughly 150-mile trip to Cottonwood in an attempt to upset Redding-area West Valley, the Northern Section Division III champion.
Top-seeded Woodland Christian, which won a NorCal championship last season, poses as West Valley’s top threat in the Division IV bracket. The Cardinals have won back-to-back section titles, coupled with 26-win seasons and are a borderline top-100 team in California.
They will first see No. 8 seed Durham, which is in after upsetting top-seeded Winters in the Northern Section Division IV championship game. This bracket and the Division V bracket feature five of the six North State schools slated to compete in regionals.
West Valley, the lone Redding-area baseball team to compete this week, is 8-1 at home this season and has won 20 of its last 21 games dating back to March. It has enjoyed a historic season under first-year head coach Willie Church, the most recent milestone being the club winning its first section title since 1992.
Northern Section baseball’s best awarded home game, other North State representation
After cruising to a second-straight section championship, Chico, 28-1, is set to appear in a third-straight NorCal as the No. 3 seed in Division II. It will host a game for the second time during that stretch, trying to avoid another first-round exit.
The Panthers are the 39th-ranked team in the state and are undefeated at home this season. They will face Bay-Area Acalanes, the No. 6 seed from Lafayette, which won a Division II North Coast Section championship as the No. 5 seed in a 16-team bracket.
The final three Northern Section champions will vie for a Division V NorCal title, and two will play each other in the first round. Etna earned the top seed in the Division V bracket after a fourth-straight section championship and will host No. 8 seed Maxwell, which received an at-large bid after losing in a section title game.
Los Molinos, the No. 4 seed entering its third-straight NorCal, will host No. 5 seed Swett, another Bay Area program also from the North Coast Section.
Foothill, Pleasant Valley softball each enter Division III NorCal title contention
The second-ranked Northern Section team and top-division champion, Redding-area Foothill, will play at home Tuesday as the No. 4 seed against No. 5 seed Liberty of Madera, representing the Central Coast Section. The Hawks will have a mere 300-mile trek to Palo Cedro, the longest of any first-round softball game across five divisional brackets.
Foothill enters the NorCal tournament on an 11-game win streak, with three of those 11 wins coming against Pleasant Valley, including a section championship. Under the guidance of first-year head coach Tayler Walker and Maryland commit Elisea Wiegand, the Cougars have posted a section-best 26-5-1 record.
Pleasant Valley, the Northern Section top-division runner-up, earned the No. 6 seed and will travel to face No. 3 seed Carondelet of the North Coast Section in Concord. The Cougars were also a runner-up in their respective section championship, losing to Cardinal Newman, which is the No. 2 seed in this bracket.
Division III is the only division to include seven teams as opposed to eight; top-seeded Hillsdale received a first-round bye and will await the winner of Foothill and Liberty. The Fighting Knights are billed as a top-100 team in the state, and played Redding-area University Prep this season when they won, 5-2.
University Prep dubbed No. 6 seed in Div IV, rest of Northern Section softball
After a first-round loss to eventual champion Sutter in last season’s Division III NorCal playoff, Redding’s U-Prep will look to upset 21-win, No. 3 seed San Leandro on the road in what will be a seven-to-eight-hour round trip.
Fielded as another North Coast Section championship runner-up, the Pirates closed the season losing four of their final seven. U-prep, on the other hand, has won nine of its last 10, including its second-straight section championship over top-seeded Colusa.
The Division IV bracket is headed by top-seeded, Northern Section stalwart East Nicolaus after it won a sixth-straight section title this season. The Spartans will host No. 8 seed Woodside before a potential matchup with No. 5 seed Gridley, if the Northern Section Division III champion can beat No. 4 seed Northgate.
Rounding out the North State softball representation is Biggs, which is the top seed in Division V. It will play No. 8 seed Willits, with an opportunity to host through the championship game.
This article originally appeared on Redding Record Searchlight: See which Redding-area baseball and softball teams will play in the NorCal playoffs
Reporting by Andrew Edwards/Special to the Record Searchlight / Redding Record Searchlight
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