The 2023-24 high school sports season has come and gone. 

The Recorder area had one spring state champion in the Turners Falls softball team, which knocked off Georgetown in the MIAA Division 5 final earlier this month at UMass. It was the Thunder’s 11th state title in program history, adding to their already existing state record in the sport. 

The spring season saw the Pioneer baseball team reach its third-straight Final Four under coach Kevin Luippold while the Greenfield baseball team made a second-straight run in the Div. 5 state tournament, this time reaching the semifinals as the No. 15 seed. 

On the year as a whole, seven Recorder teams reached the state semifinals: Turners volleyball, Frontier volleyball, Pioneer boys basketball, Mahar boys basketball, Pioneer baseball, Greenfield baseball and Turners softball. 

Six Recorder teams were crowned Western Mass. champions: Turners volleyball, Frontier volleyball, Frontier field hockey, Mahar boys basketball, Turners softball and Greenfield softball. 

How did the MIAA do at seeding teams this spring? 

In baseball, the average seed of the five state champions was 2.2. In softball that number was 2, boys tennis was 1.5, girls tennis was 1.75 and boys volleyball was 1.5. In non-Recorder area sports, boys and girls lacrosse champions checked in with an average seed of 1.5. 

As for the Final Four, in baseball the average seed to reach the semifinals was 5.05. Believe it or not, Greenfield was not the highest-seeded team to get there — that title belonged to Salem, which reached the semis in Div. 4 as the No. 24 seed. 

Softball had a similar average for its semifinalists, checking in with an average seed of 4.35. The highest-seeded team to reach the Final Four was 21st-seeded King Philip, which made it all the way to the state finals in Div. 1 where it fell to Taunton. 

King Phillip was just one of three teams to make a state title game as a double-digit seed, the other two coming in ice hockey where Winchester made the D1 title game as the No. 11 seed while Boston Latin was the lone double-digit seed state champion, winning the Div. 2 hockey title as the No. 11 seed. 

Boys lacrosse (3.4), girls lacrosse (3.1), boys tennis (3.3), girls tennis (2.7) and boys volleyball (2.7) showed once again that the MIAA does a great job at the top of its bracket seeding teams, with the Final Four games typically filled by the top seeds. 

Since the start of the new statewide tournament format, the MIAA ranks teams in each division and the top 32 seeds get an automatic spot in the field. The MIAA also allows any team with a record of .500 or above into the tournament, even if they aren’t ranked inside the top 32. 

How do those non-top 32 ranked teams that get into the tournament fare? Not that well. 

Across the seven spring sports, 175 teams qualified for the tournament thanks to their record despite not being ranked in the top 32. Those teams went 28-147 in their preliminary round game. 

By sport, non-top 32 baseball teams went 8-30, softball went 1-42, boys lacrosse was 4-15, boys tennis was 6-6, girls tennis was 3-20 and boys volleyball went 3-18. 

Looking at the numbers throughout the year, non-top 32 seeds went 27-92 in the preliminary round during the winter season. Broken down by sport, non-top 32 seeds went 16-42 in boys basketball, 8-43 in girls basketball and 3-7 in hockey. 

In the fall, non-top 32 seeds went 23-117. By sport, non-top 32 seeds went 1-3 in field hockey, 8-45 in boys soccer, 7-39 in girls soccer and 7-30 in volleyball. Football was the lone sport with a hard cutoff, as only the top 16 seeds in each division get a spot in the playoffs. 

On the year as a whole, non top-32 seeds went 78-356 in preliminary round games. For percentage purposes, the teams seeded in the top 32 had an 82 percent chance of playing in the Round of 32. When you consider the travel that goes into the state tournament, it’s something the MIAA must look into.

Throughout the 2023-24 school year, seven Western Mass. schools took home state championships: Turners softball (D5), Longmeadow boys lacrosse (D2), Longmeadow girls tennis (D2), Westfield boys volleyball (D2), Hoosac Valley girls basketball (D5), Monson girls soccer (D5) and Mount Greylock volleyball (D5).

That left Western Mass. with seven out of the possible 74 state champions across the three seasons (9.5 percent).