By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

HOOVER – The 22^nd annual Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Buccaneer Classic will be held this week, hosted by Hoover High School. Games will be played from March 28-31, with action taking place at Hoover High School, the Hoover Met and Shades Mountain Christian School as well.

There are 15 total teams in the tournament, and four of those teams are from Shelby County in Spain Park, Pelham, Oak Mountain and Helena. Spain Park and Pelham are both in Pool 2 alongside Austin, Moody and Rossview (Tenn.) while Oak Mountain and Helena are in Pool 3 along with Prattville, Decatur and Corner. Pool 1 consists of Hoover, Hartselle, Oxford, Montgomery and Scottsboro.

Each team will play the other teams from within their pool along with as one or two other teams from outside their pool as well. After round robin games conclude on Wednesday, March 30, the single-elimination portion of the tournament will take place on Thursday, March 31. Each team will play on Thursday, however only the top eight from the first three days of games will compete for the tournament championship. The top seed from each pool will get an automatic bid into the single-elimination portion of the tournament, while the next five teams will be determined based on overall record in the tournament and a series of tiebreakers.

The tiebreakers to determine seeds 3-8 will be based on, in descending order, head-to-head matchups, fewest runs given up (in pool games only), number of tournament games played and lastly regular season winning percentages.

Spain Park has the most wins of any team in Pool B, bringing in a 15-12 record to the tournament. Helena, at 18-10, brought the best record into Pool C, while Oak Mountain had the highest winning percentage at 80 percent with a 16-4 record.

Action starts today as Oak Mountain takes on Corner at 11:15 a.m. at the Hoover Met while Spain Park is taking on Moody at the same time at Hoover High School. Pelham takes on Moody 1:30 p.m. at Hoover High School, while Helena’s first matchup is against Oak Mountain at 1:30 p.m. at the Met.