The race to PNC Field begins Friday.
District 2 released all four brackets for its postseason baseball tournament on Wednesday. The finalists across the four classes of competition will once again meet up at the RailRiders’ stadium in Moosic for a full slate of games on Memorial Day.
Class 3A and Class 2A open first-round play on Friday. Class 4A and Class A start on Monday with the quarterfinal round. All games start at 4:30 p.m. unless noted.
Division 3 champion Holy Redeemer was the lone Wyoming Valley Conference team to capture a top seed. The Royals (13-1) are No. 1 in Class 2A and earned a first-round bye for their efforts.
Unbeaten Delaware Valley (4A), Valley View (3A) and defending champ Blue Ridge (A) are the other No. 1 seeds in the district.
The WVC’s other two division winners — Wyoming Valley West (Division 1) and Wyoming Area (Division 2) — are the No. 2 seed in the 4A and 3A brackets, respectively.
For Wyoming Area (10-3), that also means a first-round bye. Wyoming Valley West (11-2), meanwhile, will host No. 6 Scranton on Monday at Spartan Stadium. Valley West is the defending tournament champion and reached the PIAA finals in State College last June.
Elsewhere in the Class 4A regional, No. 6 Hazleton Area (8-5) will make the trip out to Williamsport to play the District 4 Millionaires at Bowman Field.
The opening round in Class 3A features three WVC vs. WVC matchups. No. 9 Lake-Lehman (5-8) at No. 8 Pittston Area (5-8) is the first postseason game in the area, starting at 12:30 p.m. The other WVC games are No. 12 Coughlin (4-9) at No. 5 Crestwood (6-7) and No. 13 Tunkhannock (4-9) at No. 4 Berwick.
Pittston Area beat Lake-Lehman in the regular season. Tunkhannock swept both games from Berwick while Crestwood and Coughlin split their series.
Rounding out the 3A schedule, No. 6 Dallas (6-7) plays host to No. 11 Scranton Prep. Wyoming Area will host the winner of Abington Heights and Honesdale in Tuesday’s quarterfinals. Abington Heights is the three-time defending Class 3A champion.
In Class 2A, No. 9 Hanover Area (7-7) will take on No. 8 GAR (8-6) in a Division 3 rubber match after splitting the first two games. No. 7 Northwest (9-5) will play host to No. 10 Mountain View.
No. 13 Nanticoke (4-10) and No. 14 Wyoming Seminary (4-10) will have to wait until Thursday to learn their opponents as Holy Cross and Lakeland have a playoff to decide the Lackawanna Division 3 title. The winner of that game will host Seminary and the loser hosts Nanticoke.
No. 5 Meyers (10-4) will start their postseason run at 2 p.m. Saturday, hosting No. 12 Riverside.
Second-seeded Montrose won the 2A tournament in 2015.
Finally, in Class A, No. 6 MMI Prep (1-13) will hit the road to take on No. 3 Old Forge on Monday.
