PLAYER OF THE YEAR NOMINEE -- Ally Batenhorst, Seven Lakes

Tournament baseball is great for the coaches, who get to mix and match a Rubik’s Cube of lineups over each 4-6 game tournament weekend. It’s great for the players who get lots of “seat time” to hone their timing at the plate, field different positions and maybe log a few innings on the mound. It’s great for fans who get to sate their appetites through a steady parade of teams on fields across Texas.

What tournament baseball is not good for is trying to sus out which teams are legitimate contenders and which are simply early season pretenders. One team can run up an impressive record against overmatched opponents in a weaker tournament while a powerful team can drop three 1-run games again state powers in a different event. Throw in – pardon the pun – the fact that pitching is such an integral part of high school baseball and the records can become skewed in a hurry. Who knows how many arms are left in Game 5 on a Saturday afternoon?

Westlake and Lake Travis have been sitting atop the District 26-6A standings for the better part of a decade. Bowie usually joins them in the playoff hunt, joined more recently by Dripping Springs when the Tigers moved up to 6A. Although the pathway to the playoffs is slightly more open in other sports than it is in football, that still doesn’t leave a lot of room for anyone else to reach the playoffs.

Not content to wait until the Cavs and the Chaps move into a different district next season the Austin High Maroons might be eyeballing the district race with a slightly more hopeful attitude this season. Lake Travis was supposed to be the dominant team in this year’s race, but the Cavs are only off to a 7-8-1 start. Westlake enters district play at 7-10 overall. (Not that anyone expects either of those squads to struggle for long.) Meanwhile, Bowie is 12-3-1 and Dripping Springs is 12-4-1. So, the window is still narrow.