The Cape Cod League has been well established for more than 20 years as the pre-eminent summer college league in the country. The 74-year-old National Baseball Congress World Series remains the nation’s top tournament for summer-league clubs.

Both long-established entities will determine 2008 champions over the next several days and it’s entirely possible that the fate of the No. 1 team in PG Crosschecker’s final weekly Summer 16 rankings for 2008 lays in the balance.

The Cape League will establish a champion later this week with Eastern Division champion Harwich awaiting the winner of a rain-delayed Western Division series between Cotuit and Falmouth. Harwich advanced to the final round by defeating regular-season overall points leader Orleans in two straight Eastern Division playoff games, including 1-0 in 18 innings in the deciding game.

Meanwhile, the 42-team NBC World Series field was narrowed to 12 teams through action on Monday night. A champion is scheduled to be crowned Friday in Wichita, Kan., the NBC’s long-time home.

Between them, the Cape League and NBC World Series have 13 teams on the accompanying expanded Summer 16 list of 32 teams, so much is at stake over the balance of the week as summer college league competition for 2008 draws to a close.

There is no guarantee that the season-ending No. 1 team will come from the Cape or NBC World Series, however, as the nation’s No. 2 team, Youse’s Maryland Orioles of the Cal Ripken Sr. League, are 49-7 on the season and seeking a sixth straight All-American Amateur Baseball Association title in Johnstown, Pa.

There are also a number of champions from various summer college leagues around the country that don’t participate in a season-ending national tournament that are still in the running. Several teams ran the table in their leagues, both finishing first in the regular season and validating their worth with playoff victories. Among such teams are Cincinnati (Great Lakes), Luray (Valley), Sanford (New England Collegiate) and Thomasville (Coastal Plain).

The PG Crosschecker rankings are based, in part, on a team’s overall record, dominance in their league, legitimate pro-level talent on the roster and the relative overall strength of the league compared to other summer college leagues around the country. No teams with sub-.500 records are considered, nor are teams with rosters that are not almost exclusively composed of college talent. Like we did a week ago and will continue to do so the remainder of the 2008 summer season, we’ve super-sized our Summer 16 rankings to include 32 teams—a reflection of the growing national interest in the rankings and summer ball in general.

The team rankings serve as a warmup to our individual league rankings of the top prospects, which we will unveil later in August.

Here are this week’s PG Crosschecker Summer 16 (32) summer college baseball rankings, with records through Aug. 11 (last week’s ranking noted in parentheses).