Porters Chapel Academy was the class of District 5-A this season. It won 9 of 10 games against its district opponents, run-ruled a lot of them, and had a generally easy time in finishing in first place.

That doesn’t mean PCA coach Randy Wright was thrilled to see a District 5-A team wind up as the Eagles’ first playoff opponent.

University Christian (10-8) won seven of its last eight games and survived a three-team, round-robin tournament last week to earn a wild-card spot in the MPSA Class A playoffs. The best-of-three series starts tonight at 6 at PCA, with Game 2 Thursday at 6 at UCS. Game 3, if necessary, is scheduled for Friday at 6 back at PCA.

Add in the familiarity between the teams, a fairly close game the last time they met — a 7-1 PCA win that the Eagles (16-10) broke open late — and Wright’s uneasiness becomes a little easier to understand.

“They’re playing their best baseball right now, and any time you face a team that’s playing as well as they are you need to come to play,” Wright said. “They seem to be playing with more confidence and executing better. They’re just playing better baseball than they were the last time we played them.”

Of course, the same could be said of PCA.

After a rough start that left them with a 6-7 record, PCA won 10 of its last 13 regular-season games. Hitters such as Clayton Holmes (.458 average, 31 runs scored) and Josh Hill (.342, 24 runs scored, four home runs) came on strong late.

Mostly, though, it may have been a case of a young team coming together at the right time. Only one starter, Matt Cranfield, returned from last year’s team.

“We’re finally playing together. None of us had really played together besides tournament ball,” Cranfield said.

While some players took a while to find their groove, Cranfield has been in one all season long.

The senior right-hander is hitting .500, with a team-best seven home runs and 41 RBIs entering the series, and has been even better on the mound. He’s 7-0 on the year, has allowed only one earned run in 48 innings, and has 89 strikeouts. His ERA is a microscopic 0.14.

“Cranfield is our guy. We have a lot of confidence when he’s pitching. Everybody seems to play better when we know he’s pitching,” Wright said of his Game 1 starter.