{"id":670834,"date":"2026-04-08T20:02:28","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670834\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T20:02:28","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T20:02:28","slug":"cif-southern-section-adds-pool-play-for-division-1-baseball-playoffs-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/670834\/","title":{"rendered":"CIF Southern Section Adds Pool Play for Division 1 Baseball Playoffs in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6n\">The CIF Southern Section will implement a new high school baseball playoff format for the Division 1 playoffs in 2026.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6q\">The new format is only for Division 1. The remaining divisions will be single-elimination tournament style with field sizes as large as 32 teams.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">For years, coaches have been advocating for a playoff format that will give teams more than one game to show their worth in the postseason. That reality is finally here.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6w\">This spring, a Pool Play format will be installed that allows all Division 1 teams in a 16-team field to earn their way deeper into the playoffs even if they lose their first game. Essentially, instead of a traditional win-or-go-home, single-game elimination tournament, teams will be able to showcase a body of work with at least three guaranteed games in pool play before eventual bracket play.<\/p>\n<p>THE BREAKDOWNThe 16-team field will be broken into four pools of four.Each team gets a guaranteed three games.Top two finishers of each pool advance to knockout stage (quarterfinals).Quarterfinal matchups will be pool winners vs. other pool runner-ups.Semifinals scheduled for May 26. Finals set for either May 29 or 30.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"75\">Here&#8217;s how it looks on paper &#8230;<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images2.minutemediacdn.com\/image\/upload\/c_crop,x_0,y_0,w_0,h_0\/c_fill,w_16,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto\/images\/voltaxMediaLibrary\/mmsport\/high_school\/01knq4mhxctdx52983b0.jpg\" alt=\"The new CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoff format highlighted by guaranteed games and pool play.\" title=\"The new CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoff format highlighted by guaranteed games and pool play.\" width=\"0\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"7f\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The new CIF Southern Section Division 1 playoff format highlighted by guaranteed games and pool play. | CIF<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7j\">This is a new developing story &#8230; check back for updates and more details &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CIF Southern Section will implement a new high school baseball playoff format for the Division 1 playoffs&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-670834","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","10":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mlb-playoffs","13":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116370876735856405","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}