District B-3 race is a three-team dogfight
Playoff scenarios: Depew, Davenport, Kiefer are all tied for first place

BY JUSTIN HARPER, Staff Writer, jharper@opubco.com Comments 0
Published: November 3, 2009

It’s not exactly the Oklahoma-Texas-Texas Tech tie-breaker fiasco of 2008. But Depew, Davenport and Kiefer can certainly relate to that mess.

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On Page 7C:

See the district scenarios for Classes A, B and C.

Especially Depew and Davenport.

The District B-3 teams are tied for first heading into Friday’s regular-season finale. Making things more interesting, and more similar to the OU-Texas-Tech situation, is that each team beat one of the other schools and lost to the other.

Depew and Davenport are in familiar territory, having gone through the same thing with Weleetka last season.

"Since they’ve been in this spot before, the players seem to know everything that’s going on,” said first-year Depew coach Greg Benson. "They know all the scenarios.”

This season, Davenport lost to Keifer, but beat Depew. Kiefer beat Davenport but lost to Depew. And, obviously, Depew fell to Davenport but topped Kiefer.

But that’s just the start of it. Unlike the Big 12 tiebreaker, there is a points system in high school. But in this case, it’s not much help because the three teams are all within 14 points of each other (as many as 15 points can be gained in one game).

What’s more, all three play teams they should beat Friday: Kiefer has the toughest go, facing 6-3 Wetumka, which is in fifth place in the district. Davenport gets 2-7 Agra and Depew faces 2-7 Prue.

That leaves many championship scenarios. The easiest and most obvious is for one of the teams to win while the other two lose. That almost assuredly will not happen. But Davenport would take the title with a win and Kiefer loss; Depew would with a win and Davenport loss and Kiefer would with a win and Depew loss.

After that it’s a convoluted mess involving district points gained in Friday’s games. In all three cases, the team could be the champ or fall to third. Depew has the most district points at 74, followed by Davenport with 69 and Kiefer with 60.

"The parity is there with the top three teams, so that’s why it’s not a big surprise we’re in this,” Benson said. "Sometimes you run into this where the third or fourth place teams might be in this situation. But I don’t think it’s as weird as having one loss three ways than having a tie of teams with several losses.”

A year ago, Depew got the short-end of the tie-breaker stick and ended up third on points.

"It definitely is different this time,” said Benson. "We went third last year, but we feel like we’re in the driver’s seat now. As long as Kiefer wins, and we think they will, we feel like we’re in control of our own destiny.”