Playoffs: Lakewood Heimishe Bake Shoppe, Segwayz advance

The playoff seedings are set, and tension is at a climax, heading into the All Star Israel Softball League post-season. The Wild Card round games will be played this weekend at Kraft Family Stadium, with the semifinals next weekend. The two teams to emerge will then play for the coveted Holyland Series Championship Trophy.

The top two seeds, Café Rimon and Bagelsbergs, e arned first round byes. For Rimon, the week off comes at the perfect time, giving star pitcher Yaacov Ehrlich a chance to recover from a minor injury.

In Ehrlich's absence from the mound, reliever Yanky Itzkowitz filled in ably, earning two wins in two weeks, and allowing a total of only four runs. League observers have pegged Rimon as the championship favorite, after their recent 23-2 landslide win over Bagelsbergs clinched the top seed, and gave them a perfect undefeated record in the regular season.

Segwayz and Lakewood Heimishe Bake Shoppe earned the right to face each other in the Wild Card round, after successful regular season campaigns placed them in the 4th and 5th seeds, respectively. Each has reason to believe they can win it all, especially after evenly-matched meetings with the two top seeds. Lakewood was the only team to give Rimon a real nip-and-tuck dogfight, while Segwayz won a nailbiter over Bagelsbergs.

Perennial contenders Lobos are sitting pretty as the third seed, awaiting the result of the final regular season game between the Brooklyn Lightning and Jerrys' Kids. A win for Brooklyn would advance them to face Lobos. Should Jerry's Kids successfully play the spoiler, Torah Tidbits would land the final spot.