There will be a sense of familiarity in the MSHSAA Class 3 District 2 baseball tournament, which starts Saturday in Malden.
Of the seven teams in contention, five -- East Carter, Twin Rivers, Greenville, Clearwater and Doniphan -- play each other at least twice a year for the Ozark Foothills Conference regular-season and tournament championship every spring and fall, making this postseason bracket a highly contested one amongst rivals.
"We are all pretty familiar with everyone since most of the OFC is in it, so it should make for an exciting tournament," Twin Rivers coach Jared Stockton said. "It's filled with good teams and any one of them could win it."
The tournament kicks off with three first-round games Saturday. The semifinals will follow Monday with the championship game set for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
After a disappointing exit in last year's Class 2 District 2 championship, East Carter (14-4) is once again perched atop the bracket as the No. 1 seed in search of its fourth district title in five years.
The Redbirds, who are averaging nearly seven runs per game, have won nine of their last 10, including their fourth straight Black River League Tournament championship.
"We've had a really good season but I think we're just now starting to hit our full stride," East Carter coach Scott Henfling said. "In this district everybody knows everybody so it's going to be tough and highly contested in just about every game."
Despite beating the Redbirds 3-1 to open conference play back on April 6, Greenville (8-4) was seeded third. The Bears will face No. 6 Doniphan (4-13) at 10 a.m. Saturday, seeking redemption for a 6-3 loss to the Dons on April 10.
Doniphan has had a rough end to their season since beating the Bears, winning just two of their final seven games, including two one-run victories this week. But head coach Kelly Mayse is hoping the Dons can keep some momentum against Greenville.
"We know if we play like we should we can beat any of the teams in the district," Mayse said. "We're really young so we get a little bit behind if we get down really quick, but hopefully we can duplicate our success against them from earlier in the year."
Greenville, meanwhile, went 4-1 to finish out the regular season behind the arm of senior ace Trey McDaniel, who surpassed the 600 strikeout mark in his career with the Bears earlier this season and is coming off a no-hitter.
Stockton's second-seeded Royals (6-7) face a winless Puxico team at noon Saturday and will look to find some consistency. Twin Rivers has had 10 postponements due to rain already this season and has lost its last five games.
"Puxico is a young team and their record has shown that but they aren't someone we're taking for granted," Stockton said. "Crazy things can happen in this sport and around district time."
While familiarity will be a common theme, the last of the three quarterfinals, which begins at 2 p.m., features two teams in fourth-seeded Malden and No. 5 Clearwater who haven't met since April 5, 2004.
The Green Wave won that meeting against the Tigers 5-4, but the current crop of players from both sides are having similar seasons.
Both Malden (11-14) and Clearwater (9-7) started the year 2-3 and are hovering right around .500. Each teams is averaging five runs a game and has beaten five common opponents.
"I haven't played Clearwater since I've been coaching here so it will be a first-time opponent for all of us," Malden coach Tim Harmon said. "I don't know a lot about them to be quite honest but like us and with what their record shows, I think we're pretty similar teams and we play a similar type of game."
Clearwater is coming off a successful 2016 campaign in which it won a district title for the first time since 2010 and advanced to the Class 3 quarterfinals. Malden is in search of its second title in the last three seasons. The winner will advance to face East Carter in a semifinal at 4 p.m. Tuesday.