The MIAA Conference baseball standings will be short a few games because of ruling by the conference. Emporia St. (39-9/22-4) has a one-game lead over Central Missouri St. (39-10/21-5) going into the final weekend of the regular season, but a makeup game against third place Missouri Western, which was rained out back in March, will not have to be made up. Missouri Western is in third place.
According to a news release on the conference’s website “the only make up games to be played are to allow teams with the possibility of winning the regular season title or making the postseason tournament to meet the conference’s minimum requirements for games played. To be eligible for the regular season title and postseason tournament, a team must play at least 75 percent of the scheduled games and at least two games against each of the teams in the conference”.
Since the 75 %/two-game criteria was met, the makeup games, which could have had a bearing on the regular season conference title, won’t be played. Meanwhile, two games that Central Missouri St. wanted to make up against Washburn on Tuesday, won’t count towards the conference standings because the games don’t meet the makeup criteria.
This decision is especially critical this year because the MIAA decided before the season to make designate the regular season conference champion as the automatic qualifier for the NCAA Tournament. As it stands, CMSU is currently in second place in the Central Region, which almost assures them a spot in the tournament anyways. The top eight teams make it to the tourney.
Further upsetting Central Missouri St. is the fact that a regulation that states that games that are made up, must be made up in the order that they were postponed. ESU made up two games against Missouri Southern, which is in last place in the conference. According to the MIAA rules, CMSU contends that ESU should have had to make up the games against Missouri Western first, because they were rained out first.
Related web sites:
MIAA Ruling
