Staff report

GRANITE QUARRY — East Rowan (26-1) is officially the No. 1 seed for the 3A West baseball playoffs.

The NCHSAA released seeds and pairings on Monday afternoon. East’s status as the team to beat in the bracket was no surprise. East has paced the RPI rankings for a long time.

East will play No. 32 West Mecklenburg on Tuesday at Staton Field in the first round.

West Meck was 52nd in the RPI rankings, but was an automatic qualifier for the playoffs as the top 3A team in a split 3A/4A league.

West Rowan (17-8) is seeded 19th and will be on the road at No. 14 Kings Mountain (16-7) in the first round.

Carson (15-11) is seeded 24th and will play at No. 9 Piedmont (11-13) in Tuesday’s first round.

The other South Piedmont Conference teams in the playoffs are No. 13 Lake Norman Charter and No. 30 Northwest Cabarrus.

South Rowan was 31st in the final 3A West RPI rankings but didn’t make the 32-team bracket.

West Meck got in as an automatic conference qualifier.

Asheboro, which got the 31 seed, also was lower than South Rowan as far as RPI, but South finished behind Robinson in the SPC standings. With the NCHSAA’s leapfrog provision, South couldn’t get in the playoffs ahead of Robinson, and Robinson, which was No. 33 in the final RPI rankings, didn’t make it.

The third round  of the playoffs is scheduled for May 14, with the fourth round on May 17.

The best-of-three state championship series will be played 0n May 21-25. If East makes it to that point, the Mustangs would have home-field advantage. If three games are needed, they’d play two of them at Staton Field.

The venues for the state championship series are Burlington and Holly Springs.