Toughest Road to State This Year?

I was talking with a coaching friend of mine on Saturday who said "if we can win our district, in Sectionals we'd play (insert good team here), then in the Quarterfinals we'd play (insert good team here), and then at the Final Four it would be (wow, tough game) and then (another hard game) in the State Finals."

Of course, that's how it should be. It should be hard to win state. So who has the hardest road this year?

Just looking out there now, in Class 1, Districts 1-4 could go something like Risco vs. Advance and Eminence vs. Dora. Yikes. That is a meat grinder. Whoever comes out of that part of the state will have earned it. The opposite corner of the state (Northwest Missouri) has Winston (23-2), Worth County (20-5), Jefferson (18-7 with one of the best coaches in the state), and North Andrew (24-0, and "coulda, shoulda" won it last year if not for an injury in the semifinals).

In Class 2 you've got a similar setup with Bernie, Hayti, Chaffee, Oran, Thayer, Neelyville, Mansfield, and Hartville... all very solid teams, district championship caliber teams... EIGHT TEAMS fighting for one spot in the Final Four coming out of the SEMO area. Coming out of the Northwest side, you've got #1 ranked Sacred Heart (24-1), Wellington Napolean (a sneaky 17-7), and Mid-Buchanan (21-4) all fighting for a spot.

My vote for toughest road? That goes to the winner of the Charleston-Malden-East Prairie District, aka "The Gauntlet," aka "Class 3 District 1," which is historically the toughest district in the state of Missouri. While I'll be the first to say, that district is down this year, it's still arguably the toughest road to the Final Four.

I say that because the winner will have had to play a tough game to get out of districts, then will probably face a really good Saxony Lutheran team in the Sectional Round, and then will no doubt have to face Whitfield in the quarterfinals. Whitfield is loaded, led by Mizzou bound Torrence Watson, the 6'5 scoring machine.

So if I had to say which team has the toughest path to state? That is the winner of Class 3 District 1. They have the biggest hurdle (Whitfield, Torrence Watson) AND they have the toughest games just to make it that far (their own district PLUS getting by Saxony, which won't be easy).

What do you think? What is the toughest path to make it to state?