FIRST AND SHORT

Divisional title still in play in Woodland Conference

JR Radcliffe
jr.radcliffe@jrn.com

The "Woodland Conference Championship Game," to be held Thursday between Pewaukee and host Greenfield and broadcast by My24 Milwaukee in the local market, isn't exactly the same concept as the Big Ten title game. In fact, it's not as official as you might think.

The stakes for Pewaukee are a little more than merely winning the "overall" Woodland title, which has no bearing on the WIAA recognition for seeding purposes. Should Pewaukee (4-1 in league play) fall to Greenfield and New Berlin Eisenhower (4-1) defeat Messmer/Shorewood on the same night, Eisenhower would have a better record in conference games and be declared the Woodland West champion, even though Pewaukee isn't facing a Woodland West foe in the finale.

It's part of the complicated fabric of the Woodland layout, which features six conference games. The members of the six-team divisions are essentially branched into groups of two for crossover games, playing the team slotted directly across for conference purposes in Week 9 and playing the other team in a Week 8 nonconference game. In other words, Week 8 features the top seed in the West against No. 2 in the East, the 3s play the 4s and the 5s play the 6s, and then it's the 1s against each other the following week, as well as the 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s.

The format has been in play since 2013, and a situation like what we have in 2016 hasn't come up before. In 2014, East "champ" South Milwaukee lost in the title game, and second-place Brown Deer won its final crossover, but that gave the two teams the same record, and South Milwaukee was still safely considered the East champ by virtue of the head-to-head advantage. This year, we have a rare situation where Eisenhower and Pewaukee head into the final week of the season with identical 4-1 conference records (Pewaukee won the regular-season meeting between the two, 26-24), and while Ike gets to face the No. 2 team in the East, Pewaukee must beat the No. 1 team and could get bypassed for the West title, even though Pewaukee is the West representative in the "title game."

If Ike does win the West, it will be considered the league champ, which gets taken into account by the WIAA as it attempts to equitably divide conference champs when it creates the postseason groups of eight.

That may only have secondary meaning for Pewaukee should it lose to Greenfield, and it would be somewhat justified since the two teams in contention for the West title have played the same schedule, and Eisenhower defeated Greenfield in the Week 8 nonconference battle. Obviously, a Pewaukee win nullifies all of it (Greenfield went 5-0 in East play and is the divisional champ regardless).

But the other quirk in the Woodland layout is also coming into play as it concerns teams like Wauwatosa West and New Berlin West.

New Berlin West defeated Tosa West in the regular season, and when the two teams finished the year with 2-3 Woodland West records, New Berlin was declared the No. 4 seed and Wauwatosa the No. 5. Both need one last win to gain playoff eligibility, and New Berlin will face the East's No. 4 team (Whitnall) in a winner-take-all battle for a playoff spot Friday. Tosa West, meanwhile, gets to play its fellow No. 5 seed, Cudahy. Considering Cudahy just loss to winless Milwaukee Pius in last week's nonconference tilt, that appears to be a much easier foe for Tosa West, which runs counter to the logic of giving the better seed a perceptively easier path to the playoffs.

This is a circumstance that has happened before. Just last year, Cudahy had the same divisional record as Messmer/Shorewood but was bumped to the No. 5 seed because it lost to the Greyhounds, 34-7, in the regular season. Cudahy won its crossover with the West No. 5 seed, Pius, and earned a trip to the playoffs, while Messmer/Shorewood lost to the No. 4 seed, Pewaukee, and was held out.

Confused?

Woodland Conference title games

2013: Greendale 41, South Milwaukee 7

2014: Greendale 42, South Milwaukee 7

2015: Greenfield 35, Greendale 28

2016: Pewaukee vs. Greenfield, 7 p.m. Thursday