By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

The expansion to seven classifications this season for the first time ever by the Mississippi High School Activities Association before the beginning of the current school year affected every sport for every team in the state of Mississippi in some form or fashion.
And that’s especially true of the 25 squads sanctioned by the MHSAA in the “Southern Six”.
Region action in baseball started recently, last week for the four smallest classifications followed up this week by the three larger classes, and the league schedule is different for each despite the expansion.

For example, in the trio of larger classifications, Class 5A-7A, most of the regions in South Mississippi are playing the same league foe three times in a one week span. Games are scheduled for Tuesday, Friday and Saturday on a home-and-home rotating basis for each, weather permitting of course.
For instance, the original schedule in the first-ever Region 4-7A play this week had Biloxi at Ocean Springs on Tuesday, the Greyhounds traveling to the home of the Indians Friday night and then the two teams returning to “The Tom” for a Saturday afternoon matinee back on U.S. Highway 90 in Ocean Springs.
This is the case not only in Region 4-7A, but in Region 4-6A and Region 4-5A as well, which takes care of most of all of the larger schools in the “Southern Six”.

However, in the four smaller classifications, Class 1A-Class 4A, the situation is not the same.
In those regions, teams play the same opponent just twice a week in a home-and-home series with games slated most of the time on Tuesday and Friday.

So, for example, Resurrection would play Lumberton twice during the week but then on Saturday face a non-region opponent most of the time.
Inevitably, of course, weather intrudes causing the weekly schedules to be altered.
Just this week, in fact, quite a few league games have been moved from Friday night to Thursday night for the second game of many series’ in anticipation of rain on Friday.
The end game for all seven classes, however, is earning one of the top four seeds whether you have six or five teams in your region. That’s because in every classification, the top four teams qualify for the upcoming South State playoffs.
Including this week, there are five weeks left of regular season play before the playoffs start. Most of those weeks will be filled mostly with region action for most all seven classifications.

It just depends on which class and which region you follow most.