Who's in, who's out? FHSAA announces Northeast Florida baseball district brackets

Play ball, playoff edition.

Baseball's postseason is taking shape -- without any public schools from Duval County for the first time in 90 years -- after the Florida High School Athletic Association released its brackets for next week's opening round in Jacksonville and Northeast Florida.

Following its standard procedure, the FHSAA used its ranking formula to select at-large teams (four per region per class in classes 2A-7A, two per region in Class 1A) to accompany the automatically-qualified district tournament champions into next week's postseason.

Landing a top seed in its region was St. Johns Country Day in Region 1-2A, in spite of the Spartans' Thursday night loss to St. Joseph in their district final.

Just missing out, though, were Gateway Conference champion Atlantic Coast and runner-up Englewood, leaving the brackets with no representatives from Duval County public schools on a morning of disappointment for several Northeast Florida programs.

Atlantic Coast had entered regionals at No. 8 in Region 1-7A, beating Mandarin before losing to Bartram Trail. But they were jumped by Flagler Palm Coast, which had entered at No. 11 and went one-and-done in districts with a loss to Sandalwood. In the FHSAA's formula, FPC beat out Atlantic Coast by 0.469 points.

Englewood, who had begun at No. 6 in Region 1-5A, tumbled off the bubble after a loss in their district semifinal combined with Orange Park's unexpected run to win the District 3-5A championship, which pushed Clay into the at-large slots and denied the Rams. Englewood ended 0.786 points behind Ponte Vedra, the last at-large qualifier.

The formula excluded Yulee by an even tighter margin. The Hornets (17-11), district runners-up behind Bishop Kenny, ended 0.377 points behind West Florida for the final at-large spot in Region 1-4A.

Apart from 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic halted the season, no FHSAA baseball postseason has taken place without any Duval County public schools since 1934, when the playoffs only included seven teams and the county only had three member schools in the association (Jackson, Lee and Landon).

Bishop Kenny, although qualifying comfortably, also received a surprise in Region 1-4A. The Crusaders entered last week ranked No. 1 in Region 1-4A and won their district against Yulee, but dropped to the regional No. 2 seed behind Panama City Beach Arnold, which had lost its district championship to South Walton.

Playoff games begin Tuesday and Wednesday, the first step toward the FHSAA final four later this month in Fort Myers.

Here are the full regional brackets for the Jacksonville area.

REGION 1-7A

(8) Flagler Palm Coast at (1) Timber Creek

(5) Bartram Trail at (4) Spruce Creek

(6) Lake Brantley at (3) Lake Mary

(7) Winter Park at (2) Creekside

REGION 1-6A

(8) New Smyrna Beach at (1) Gainesville Buchholz

(5) Fleming Island at (4) Pace

(6) Oakleaf at (3) Hagerty

(7) Tocoi Creek at (2) Tallahassee Chiles

REGION 1-5A

(8) Orange Park at (1) Tallahassee Lincoln

(5) St. Augustine at (4) Escambia

(6) Ponte Vedra at (3) Clay

(2) Columbia at (7) Beachside

REGION 1-4A

(1) Panama City Beach Arnold at (8) Alachua Santa Fe

(5) Suwannee at (4) Wakulla

(6) West Florida at (3) South Walton

(7) Baker County at (2) Bishop Kenny

REGION 1-3A

(8) Keystone Heights at (1) Pensacola Catholic

(5) Providence at (4) Bishop Snyder

(6) Episcopal at (3) Bolles

(7) Ocala Trinity Catholic at (2) Trinity Christian

REGION 1-2A

(8) Gainesville St. Francis at (1) St. Johns Country Day

(5) Gainesville Oak Hall at (4) University Christian

(6) Christ's Church at (3) St. Joseph

(7) Tallahassee St. John Paul II at (2) Tallahassee NFC

REGION 3-1A

(4) Madison County at (1) Mayo Lafayette

(3) Liberty County at (2) Union County

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Who's in, who's out? FHSAA announces Northeast Florida baseball district brackets