How does this affect the Hastings Hawks, Miesville Mudhens and the rest of the CCVL?

The World Series just ended, winter is quickly approaching and there is baseball news? The winter is when all the offseason changes come about that hopefully make improvements to the game or at least the league setup in this case.

The Classic Cannon Valley League is the league that both the Class C Hastings Hawks and Class B Miesville Mudhens are part of along with the Class C teams Redwing Aces, Lake City Serpents, Cannon Falls Bears, and the Class B teams Northfield Knights, Dundas Dukes and Hampton Cardinals.

The state governing body previously defined the classes based on a few criteria. Class A, regardless of points, was defined as any team from inside the Interstate 494/694 loop. Class B and C teams were all teams outside the loop. The rule was, no players could cross the 494/694 loop to play for teams outside of the class they are supposed to be part of. Class A could not have players outside of the loop and Class B/C could not have players from inside the loop. Class B is made up of teams that have 45 or more points based on a few important factors. Class C is any team with 44 or less team points. With Class A teams struggling to fill their rosters and find places to play, that rule changed last year, and players could cross that loop boundary.

Now, the state board of directors has created a new plan, one that they hope strengthens the association as a whole. The plan? Eliminating Class A, and merging all the Class A teams into Class B. Class C will remain untouched.

The points system used to determine Class B or C looks at a variety of factors. First being the population of either the school district or the city depending on the team’s choice. The team is charged one point per 1,000 people. The Hawks have chosen to use the school district population, which is higher than the city, but also affords more zero-point players. That is because any player that lives in the school district, no matter what level of baseball beyond high school they play, they will count for zero points. If a player is from outside the population area, they count for points depending on highest level of play with Junior College being worth one point and Pro Players counting as five. Other college levels in between could be two, three or four points depending on DIII, DII or DI playing time.

For 2021, the Hawks had a total of 37 points. 22 of those from the population of the area and 15 for players that are from outside Hastings. That stayed consistent for 2022. The Mudhens on the other hand had 142 total points. One point from population, 84 success points and 57 player points in 2022.

For Hastings, the merge of Class A and Class B means very little right at this moment, but that could change as the team continues to improve, missing out on the state tournament by one game each of the last two years. For Miesville, that could mean a big change for the state tournament. With the merger, the association is working on adjusting the state tournament for next year. The details of that are currently unknown, but there has been discussion of making it a 24 team, single elimination tournament with each section sending three teams to state. The top seed in each section would receive a firstround bye.

There will be an update once those changes are decided upon, until then, the changes will only affect the Mudhens this season, which could make the state tournament a bit more exciting next August.