The Two Rivers football team finished with a 7-1 regular-season record and the top spot among teams in Class 5A Section 3 — and fifth overall — in the Class 5A Quality Ratings Formula put together by Minnesota Scores.
Yet the Warriors were assigned the No. 4 seed when the section bracket was revealed Thursday.
The top spot went to St. Thomas Academy (6-2), which finished the regular season one spot behind Two Rivers in the QRF. Bloomington Jefferson (7-1) received the No. 2 seed. The top two spots come with first-round byes.
Most surprising was that Two Rivers, a section finalist last season, was seeded behind three-win Apple Valley.
The Warriors will now play Tuesday in the section quarterfinals, where they will host fifth-seeded Hastings (2-6). Hastings handed Two Rivers its lone loss way back in Week 2, edging the Warriors 9-7. That lone data point was likely heavily relied upon during the seeding process.
The winner of that game will meet St. Thomas Academy in the section semifinals.
In Class 5A, Section 4, Mahtomedi (4-4) did indeed earn the top seed by virtue of its dominant Week 2 victory over Central (6-2). Central, the No. 2 seed, had the better QRF number, but the head-to-head result carried the day.
So Mahtomedi gets the section’s lone bye, while Central will meet Academy Force (1-7) in the quarterfinals.
Third-seeded Certin-Derham Hall will host Harding/Humboldt, while Highland Park, the No. 4 seed, will host fifth-seeded Tartan. Highland Park edged Tartan 6-0 earlier this fall.
CLASS 4A
Hill-Murray (6-2) earned the top seed and Section 3’s lone bye. Despite sporting a lower QRF, Chisago Lakes (6-2) received the No. 2 seed over defending state champion Simley (5-3). That really only affects the site of the potential second-round matchup between the two teams.
Simley will host sixth-seeded South St. Paul (3-5) in Tuesday’s quarterfinals. The Spartans beat the Packers 35-12 in late September.
Johnson (5-3) will host Como Park (4-4) on Tuesday in the No. 4-5 matchup.
CLASS 2A
St. Agnes (8-0) is the top seed in Section 4, and will meet the winner of Randolph and Rush City in the section semifinals.
More importantly for the Aggies, they’re on the opposite side of the bracket from Norwood Young America (8-0) and Cannon Falls (6-2), two state-quality teams in their own right.
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