UPDATE: Baldwin Boys Have One Last Shot at WPIAL Playoffs This Season

UPDATE: Peters Township won on Friday night, eliminating Baldwin from postseason contention. Baldwin finished in fifth place, one game out of the playoffs.

Without a couple of upsets, it will be a close-but-no-cigar scenario for the  varsity boys basketball team this season, which needs a win on Friday night and losses by two other teams to qualify for the 2012 WPIAL playoffs.

Baldwin's section record this season heading into Friday night's game at home against Bethel Park High School is 5-8, tied for fifth place with . , with a 6-7 record in Section 4, is alone in fourth place, and every Section 4 team has just one section game left this season.

Although Peters has already clinched a playoffs spot—and Upper St. Clair has already been eliminated—Baldwin could still earn a postseason berth via a season-ending head-to-head tie for fourth place with Peters Township. A three-way tie between Peters, USC and Baldwin, though, would be bad news for Baldwin.

As per WPIAL tiebreaker rules, teams that are tied for fourth place—the last playoffs position in every section—will use head-to-head records to determine who goes to the playoffs.

If Peters suffers an upset loss at on Friday, that would put the Indians at 6-8, which, if Baldwin can upset Bethel Park, would tie the Highlanders with Peters. Baldwin and Peters went 1-1 against each other this season, so the WPIAL would have to accept both Peters and Baldwin into the playoffs.

But, if Peters loses, Baldwin wins and Upper St. Clair earns an upset win at Mt. Lebanon High School on Friday, all three teams would be 6-8 and tied for fourth place. And a three-way tie, according to WPIAL tiebreaker rules, is a different ballgame.

The three-way tiebreaker would compare each tied team's record against one another, and Peters—with a 3-1 combined record against Upper St. Clair and Baldwin this season—would be the winner of that tiebreaker. (USC has gone a combined 2-2 this season against Peters and Baldwin, and Baldwin has gone 1-3 against Peters and USC.)

USC, even in a two-way tie with Peters, is out of the playoffs because USC went 0-2 against Peters this season.

Of course, a Peters win on Friday, no matter what Baldwin or USC do, would put the Indians into fourth place all by themselves, and a tiebreaker would not be necessary.

Baldwin's game against Bethel Park on Friday could be the last for seniors Matt Melczak, Sean Greiner, Jordan Hartman, Charlie Wallander and Eric Michalski in a Highlanders uniform. (Melczak is injured, though, and will not play.)

The Highlanders made things interesting down the stretch this season by winning three straight section games from Jan. 27 to Feb. 3, but a six-game section losing streak from Jan. 6 to 24, including a 53-43 loss at Peters on Jan. 20 and a , might prove to be too much to overcome.

Still, first-year Head Coach , who said that he will consider putting all four of his healthy seniors into the starting lineup on Friday, is quite proud of his team for getting back into postseason contention.

"We had a rough stretch where we lost a bunch of games in a row," Urmann said, "but credit to the players and the staff for sticking to it and not giving into the temptation to fold. All of our practices have been competitive. The guys want to play, and they love to compete.

"It's encouraging as a coach to know that guys like that are going to play as hard as they can regardless of what other people perceive our chances to be."

Still, Urmann acknowledged that, no matter what Baldwin does on Friday, it's destiny is out of its own hands.

"We're Lebo and Canon-Mac fans tonight," he said.

Baldwin last qualified for the playoffs with a 9-3 Section 4 record in 2009-10, good for second place behind the eventual WPIAL champions from Mt. Lebanon. That was the same season that the Highlanders went 14-8 overall.

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