Southeast Conference- Heading into the final conference game of the season tomorrow, June 29th, and with the champions already set there’s still a couple spots up for grabs.
On the baseball side of things, Burlington enters with only 1 loss in conference play, which came at the hands of Mt. Pleasant, 9-7 back on June 15th. This is the Grayhounds third straight outright conference championship as they tied for first in the 2019-20 season with the Panthers.
There’s a fight for second place between Fairfield and Mt. Pleasant with the advantage leaning towards the Trojans after winning their series 2 games to 1 against the Panthers. The heat was even between the two; however, Fairfield’s sweep of Keokuk on Monday and the Panthers splitting their road doubleheader against Fort Madison, winning 19-11 and losing 8-5, put the Trojans ahead by a game with an 8-6 record versus Mt. Pleasant’s 7-7 record.
Fort Madison and Keokuk are locked with a 5-9 conference record with the Chiefs having the edge in the season series nearly sweeping the Bloodhounds back in mid-June.
Washington sits in last place in the conference standings with a 4-10 mark. The Demons do have a conference series win against the Panthers after sweeping their home doubleheader 4-1 and 9-8 back on May 30th.
Moving to softball but seeing a similar result with Burlington on top of the conference standings with only one loss to the record coming at the hands of Washington. A big reason for that has been the emergence of Kylee Hill, an 8th grader for the Grayhounds, as she has ripped 13 home runs on the season, 2nd in Class 4A, with 40 RBIs and a 0.459 batting average.
Washington sits in second place with an 11-3 record and will stay in the runner-up position with their losses coming against Burlington, Fairfield, and Fort Madison. Fairfield will finish in third place with an 8-6 record after sweeping Fort Madison and Mt. Pleasant this season.
Fort Madison will take fourth place in the conference with a sweep against Keokuk and an upset win over Washington highlighting their resume.
Keokuk has a two-game advantage over Mt. Pleasant in the conference standings with a 3-11 record versus the Panthers’ 1-13 record. The Panthers’ lone conference win came against Keokuk at home with a 12-6 final. Addison Clark went 3 for 4 with a double, a triple, and 5 RBIs in the contest.
Mt. Pleasant and Keokuk will meet again in the first round of the postseason.