Regular-season photo: Allison Sherburne
West Ada (Idaho) is two sleeps away from naming its high school 7s champions. Last night, the Boise-area school district hosted the opening playoff rounds for the varsity and J.V. competitions, and the fields will reconvene on Saturday, Oct. 16 to name their high school champions.
The varsity competition began with games between like-seeded teams. Sixth-seeded Rocky Mountain (1-9) defeated #5 Centennial (2-8) 31-10, and #3 Meridian (7-3) topped #4 Owyhee (4-6) 28-7. The two victors then turned around to play the top-two teams, and #1 Eagle (9-1) beat Rocky Mountain 22-0, and #2 Mountain View (7-3) edged Meridian 15-14.
The playoffs are double-elimination so there is life after an early-stage loss.
When the competition resumes on Saturday, the two 0-1 teams (Centennial and Owyhee) will start the day against each other, as will the two 1-1 teams (Rocky Mountain and Meridian) and two 1-0 teams (Eagle and Mountain View). The latter could be a preview of the final. Again, being a double-elimination competition, it is possible for, say, Centennial or Owyhee, to advance to the championship match, but they’d have to win three matches on Saturday for that berth; whereas the winner of Game 7 will advance directly to the 12:30 p.m. MDT final.
VARSITY PLAYOFFS
OCT 13
#1 Rocky Mountain (6) 31-10 Centennial (5)
#2 Meridian (3) 28-7 Owyhee (4)
#3 Eagle (1) 22-0 Rocky Mountain (W1)
#4 Mountain View (2) 15-14 Meridian (W2)
OCT 16
#5 Centennial (L1) v Owyhee (L2)
#6 Rocky Mountain (L3) v Meridian (L4)
#7 Eagle (W3) v Mountain View (W4)
#8 Winner 5 v Winner 6
#9 Loser 7 v Winner 8
#10 Championship: Winner 9 v Winner 7
The Junior Varsity league has also included six teams during the course of the fall, but the playoffs are a straight-forward semifinal and championship set-up. On Wednesday evening, #1 Rocky Mountain (9-1) bested #4 Eagle (5-5) 17-5, and then #2 Owyhee (7-3) beat #3 Mountain View (6-4). The two victors will contest the state title Saturday at 11:45 a.m. MDT.
JV PLAYOFFS
OCT 13
Rocky Mountain 17-5 Eagle
Owyhee 24-0 Mountain View
OCT 16
Championship: Rocky Mountain vs. Owyhee