A year ago, Valley baseball went 7-11 and missed the WPIAL playoffs.
That was last year.
This year, the Vikings (14-5) bounced back to have one of the most accomplished regular seasons in Class 4A.
Now, the Section 3 co-champion with Indiana (8-2) is ready to begin what it hopes is a deep postseason run.
Valley will have to wait until May 18 to begin that journey. The WPIAL baseball playoff committee Friday awarded the Vikings the No. 3 seed and a first-round bye. They await the winner of Monday’s matchup between No. 7 West Mifflin and No. 10 Ambridge
“I don’t think you can measure the excitement level of the guys right now,” said coach Jaron Minford, who saw his Vikings hand Class 3A No. 4 Freeport its first loss of the season by a 4-2 score Thursday afternoon.
“They are through the roof with so much energy to get the playoffs started. After last year when they didn’t make it, they had something to prove. They set out to prove they belonged, and it is basically the same team as last year, so you can see the hard work they put in to get better paid off. They had goals in mind, and the playoffs were one of them. They are excited to be there, but now the work begins to achieve more of their goals. It won’t be easy, as there are so many great teams wanting the same thing as we do. But the guys will be ready.”
Indiana (15-4) and Elizabeth Forward (14-5) are the top two seeds in the Class 4A bracket.
Knoch (12-8) is the No. 8 seed and will face No. 9 Blackhawk (11-7) at 6:30 p.m. Monday at Pullman Park in Butler. The Knights, the third-place place team in Section 3 behind Indiana and Valley, will attempt to get back in the win column after a challenging slate of games against Pine-Richland, Montour and Ellwood City to close out the regular season.
There again is depth in the Class 5A field with several teams hoping to make a run.
Plum is squarely in the mix after a 17-3 regular season and a tie for second in Section 1 with Latrobe at 9-3.
The Mustangs are the No. 5 seed and will play close to home at 4 p.m. Tuesday. They will face No. 12 Upper St. Clair (9-8) at Gateway.
“To be honest, seeding doesn’t really matter,” Plum coach Carl Vollmer said. “We learned that last year. We were the No. 2 seed and lost (1-0) to (No. 15) Mars. It really comes down to who has good starting pitching. It’s a matter of who is good that day, who executes and who makes the fewest mistakes.
“I feel we had another really good season. (Class) 5A is extremely difficult. There are many teams who could win this. It is tough to say if any one team is a heavy favorite.”
Despite a sweep at the hands of Section 3 runner-up West Allegheny earlier this week, Fox Chapel (12-8) locked up fourth in the standings and will enter the Class 5A playoffs as the No. 15 seed. It takes on Section 1 champ Penn-Trafford (15-5) at 4 p.m. Tuesday at Plum.
In Class 3A, the four section champions are the top four seeds. Avonworth, Seton-LaSalle and Ellwood City are seeded No. 1 through No. 3.
Freeport, the Section 3 champion, is the No. 4 seed and will open the playoffs at 4 p.m. Tuesday close to home against No. 13 Quaker Valley (9-10) at Deer Lakes.
“We set a goal to be in the top four for the playoffs, and we are able to check off that box,” Yellowjackets coach Ed Carr said. “Our previous goals were a section title and a spot in the playoffs. Every team, when you get into the playoffs, is good. Whether you have the perfect path is irrelevant. You have to win the games at hand and beat the best if you want to win it all.”
Freeport and QV have some familiarity having scrimmaged each other in March.
The Yellowjackets averaged nine runs a game in the regular season and were undefeated through 17 games before their loss to Valley.
“I felt it was a necessary game for us to play. We saw their No. 1,” Carr said. “It was just a really good baseball game. It was a coin-flip game right to the very end, and we had some good chances.”
Burrell, third in Section 3 behind Freeport and Mt. Pleasant, is the 11th seed and will face No. 6 Mohawk (13-5) at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Pullman Park in Butler.
Some of the Bucs’ players know all about making a run as a double-digit seed. Burrell, the No. 14 seed in 2024, advanced to the semifinals and earned a spot in the PIAA playoffs.
Riverview came from the No. 6 seed last year to claim a spot in the PIAA Class 2A playoffs.
The Raiders hope for a similar run over the next few weeks to get past the semifinals and into the title game. They will get that chance starting as the No. 4 seed with a first-round matchup against No. 13 Frazier (9-9) at 6:30 p.m. Monday at West Mifflin.
The Raiders tied OLSH for second in Section 3 at 9-3 behind South Side. The teams split their section-finale series earlier this week.
Apollo-Ridge (11-8), fourth in Section 3, two games behind Riverview and OLSH, owns the No. 7 seed and will face No. 10 Shenango (11-8) at 7 p.m. Monday at Seneca Valley. The Vikings split a series with South Side in late March.
Leechburg (9-7) was yet another A-K Valley team to play winning baseball in the regular season, and the Blue Devils, runners-up to Western Beaver in Section 2-A, will enter the Class A playoffs as the No. 5 seed.
Leechburg, which lost a pair of close games to Burrell and Apollo-Ridge to cap the regular season, will face No. 12 Bishop Canevin (6-10) in the first round at 4 p.m. Monday at West Mifflin.