PORT ARTHUR — It's all over but the shoutin' y'all.

Well, not quite. Three teams have locked up their playoff futures, another

fights to get into the postseason and a fifth closes out the year in a packed

Friday of baseball and softball.

The biggest game on the schedule will be the one with the most on the line, as

the Port Neches-Groves softball team tries to beat Livingston for the first time

this season. The two teams will be playing a tiebreaker game for fourth place in

District 20-4A after finishing with identical 9-5 records.

While regular tiebreaker rules like head-to-head records, runs scored and runs

allowed decide ties for first, second and third place in 20-4A, district by-laws

throw all that out for the fourth and final spot in favor of a play-in game.

Both teams have had ups and downs during district play. PN-G opened its

district slate with a loss at Livingston, falling 6-3 on Feb. 28. The second

game also saw Livingston take the victory, this time by a slim 3-2 margin.

However, the biggest separation between the two has been their records against

other playoff teams. PN-G went 3-3 against Vidor, Little Cypress-Mauriceville

and Nederland, sweeping district co-champ LC-M in the process.

Livingston, though, went 1-5 against that same group, needing a 6-4 victory over

Vidor on the final game of the season to avoid the clean sweep. Adding in the

two wins over PN-G, the Lady Lions still only managed one road win over a

potential playoff team, which makes the neutral location of Friday's game at

Silsbee all the more intriguing.

The Nederland softball team continued its winning ways under head coach Monte

Barrow. After beating LC-M on Wednesday in a game pushed back a day due to soggy

field conditions, the Lady Bulldogs have won seven straight games since Barrow

took over the day before Nederland played Vidor for a second time.

That also clinched a tie with LC-M for the district title for Nederland. The

Lady Bulldogs took the top seed after going to the third tiebreaker, runs

allowed. However, Nederland won't know who it plays in the bidistrict round for

a little bit. District 19-4A has another set of games on Friday, with a

bottleneck after district champ Barbers Hill.

Crosby is currently in second place at 9-4, with Dayton and Baytown Lee tied for

third at 8-5. The Lady Cougars play undefeated Barbers Hill Friday while Lee

takes on Goose Creek Memorial and Dayton plays C.E. King. If Crosby loses and

both Dayton and Lee win, that means there would be a three-way tie for second

place and seeding would have to be decided by another set of tiebreakers.

On the baseball side, one of 20-4A's teams doesn't have to worry about its

seeding, while another is probably glad to be only focused on moving up in that

seeding process. The PN-G baseball team clinched the district title outright,

guaranteeing the Indians a date with 19-4A's fourth-place team in bidistrict

play.

Nederland, on the other hand, locked up a playoff spot by beating Lumberton

Wednesday. The Bulldogs now have a three-game lead over Vidor with two games to

play, meaning the Bulldogs will at least finish in the top four.

There is still a chance Nederland could finish higher than that. The Bulldogs

are currently tied for third with LC-M at 8-4 and a game behind second-place

Livingston. Nederland also holds its own fate in its hands, playing at LC-M in

the final game of the season next Friday.

Before they get there, the Bulldogs will have to play at a tough Beaumont Ozen

team that may not be in the playoff picture, but has proven to be a pesky foe.

Ozen lost to Livingston in its last game 8-5, but came back from an 8-0 deficit

in the late innings. Nederland beat Ozen 8-1 in the first meeting between the

two earlier this season.

PN-G may not be playing for seeding, but it does have something very real to

play for. Head coach Mark Brevell allowed that while wrapping up the district

title with two games to play is great, his players very much want to finish the

schedule undefeated in district.

To get there, the Indians will have to win on the road, as PN-G travels to Vidor

this Friday before closing out the season at Beaumont Central next week.

The Port Arthur Memorial softball team will wrap up its schedule on Friday,

hosting Baytown Sterling. The Memorial boys have three games left on the

schedule and will travel to La Porte on Friday.