Three Games Left, Plenty Still to Decide
The West Coast League’s regular season winds down Monday through Wednesday, and while the South has mostly sorted itself out, the North is doing its best to make things interesting right to the end.

South: Set Field, Open Question
Ridgefield has already claimed the first-half title and the South’s top seed in the first round of the playoffs, but that doesn’t mean the Raptors’ final series is a formality. With reseeding after the first round, beating Corvallis this week could still mean the difference between hosting or hitting the road in the South and/or WCL championship rounds.

Corvallis, Walla Walla, and Portland are all still playing for the second-half crown and the South’s No. 2 seed. The Knights are 16-8 in the second half and playing their final series at Ridgefield. The Sweets (15-9) visit the Marion Berries, while the Pickles (15-12) host the Yakima Valley Pippins for their final three. Corvallis controls its own fate here: win out and the Knights take the second half no matter what Walla Walla and Portland do. The Sweets and Pickles don’t have that luxury, and the Pickles in particular would need a lot of help from the Raptors and Berries.

North: Four Teams, Two Spots
Wenatchee and Bellingham have the North locked down. The AppleSox, at 38-13, have already sewn up the best record in the league, and home field for as long as they’re alive. The Bells, at 34-17, are locked into the North’s No. 2 seed. Both are now playing with little on the line beyond pride, health, and getting their pitching staffs rested for the playoffs, which open Friday.

Who they’ll face, though, remains very much undecided. For the North’s third and fourth spots, four teams are separated by two games:

Nanaimo NightOwls, 28-23
Edmonton Riverhawks, 27-24
Kelowna Falcons, 27-24
Victoria HarbourCats, 26-25

None of the four play each other this week. Edmonton is at Bellingham, Nanaimo hosts the Kamloops NorthPaws, Kelowna visits the Lefties in Port Angeles, and Victoria closes at Wenatchee. That doesn’t put the four on equal footing, though. Nanaimo wins out and nobody can touch them, full stop. Edmonton wins out and clinches too, since they (and Nanaimo both) hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over Kelowna. The Falcons don’t need to win out to stay alive, but it sure would help. Victoria, with three teams ahead of them, have the toughest road of all, though the Cats do hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over both Nanaimo and Edmonton.

Fans can watch all the games absolutely free on WCL Live, the league’s livestreaming website and apps (Apple and Android).

About the West Coast League
The West Coast League is North America’s premier summer collegiate baseball league, now in its 21st season. Sixteen teams span the region from Oregon to Alberta, giving top amateur athletes a grand stage for competition, development, and connection with the communities they represent, in the finest summer baseball weather on the continent. In each of the last three seasons, a WCL alumnus has been selected in the top five of the MLB Draft, and 10 players have come off the board in the first 10 picks over the last decade.