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New-look GSHLs await next season

The Columbian
Published: December 7, 2009, 12:00am

The numbers have been crunched, and now the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League is feeling the squeeze.

The initial numbers for reclassification for the next two-year cycle were released last week by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, and the figures delivered likely will change the landscape of sports in Southwest Washington.

The last time the WIAA reclassified teams in 2008, the aim was to deliver balance between all classification levels. And in Southwest Washington, that was achieved.

There were six teams in the 4A GSHL, six in the 3A GSHL, six in the 2A GSHL and even six in the 1A Trico League.

Balanced leagues with an even number of teams makes scheduling easier, both scheduling of league play and even non-league matches.

But the numbers released last week knocked that symmetry in Southwest Washington a little off-kilter.

Barring some unforeseen change of heart, the 4A GSHL will be comprised of five schools beginning next fall — Battle Ground, Evergreen, Heritage, Skyview and Union.

And that will leave the 3A GSHL with seven schools — Camas, Columbia River, Fort Vancouver, Hudson’s Bay, Kelso, Mountain View and Prairie.

This will cause athletic directors some challenges when making out schedules.

The easiest solution to these challenges would be for one of the larger 3A schools to opt up to 4A, leaving Kelso, Camas and Mountain View as prime candidates.

You could make cases for each of those schools to opt up.

Kelso has the largest enrollment of the three.

Camas has seen its enrollment steadily climb through the years. In fact, officials at Camas expect the Papermakers to make the move to 4A the next time reclassification happens in 2011.

As for Mountain View, you would think the Thunder would like to stay in the same league as the other Evergreen Public Schools, especially Evergreen High School.

Just think back to all those Evergreen-Mountain View football games that have determined league championships and playoff berths through the years. Next year, it will just be another non-league game — well, a non-league game with a lot of bragging rights at stake.

While those are all logical reasons for opting up, there’s one big drawback. Any 3A GSHL team that opted up would be among the smallest 4A schools in the state, while the other members of the 4A GSHL would be, at worst, middle-of-the-pack 4A schools, based on enrollment. That is a heavy concession to make.

And that is why it’s not expected that any of the 3A GSHL schools will opt up.

So that means that athletic directors will need to be clever and resourceful when making up schedules for the next two years. It’s nothing that they’re not capable of. And it’s nothing that they haven’t dealt with before.

Making schedules from scratch is kind of like working a brainteaser.

I figured I could use the exercise. So just for the heck of it, I actually mapped out mock football schedules for the 4A and 3A GSHL under this 5/7 split.

It took me 15 minutes. If any area ADs would like a copy, I can send it off.

So scheduling can’t be that tough. But there are some cost ramifications.

For instance, this fall Evergreen played nine football games and never left Clark County for any of them. Next year, that will be challenge.

That’s because next year Evergreen will have to schedule five non-league football games — four in Weeks 1-4 and one more when the Plainsmen have a bye week during league play.

In Weeks 3 and 4, playing a 3A GSHL foe might not be an option, as most 3A GSHL will be playing league games in those weeks.

So that means trying to find a 2A GSHL team willing to play a 4A opponent — good luck with that — or venturing across the river into Oregon or up I-5 to the Puget Sound region for a non-league opponent.

Travel cost is likely the main reason why schools like Ridgefield and Hockinson may opt up to 2A.

Right now, both Ridgefield and Hockinson rank among the smallest 2A schools in the state. But if a handful of smaller schools decide to opt up to 2A, it could cause Ridgefield and possibly Hockinson to slide down to 1A.

If that happens, both schools have indicated they would consider opting up to 2A.

Now, is that because both schools want to help out the 2A GSHL and keep it a six-team league? Not entirely.

It could simply boil down to money. In the current 2A GSHL, the farthest east a team must travel for a league game is Washougal, and the farthest west is Longview.

But in the 1A Trico League, teams must travel east to Stevenson and White Salmon and west to Castle Rock and Ilwaco.

That’s a lot of miles and a lot of money.

These are all things that school administrators are mulling over in the next week before final decisions must be made.

Tim Martinez is the assistant sports editor/prep coordinator for The Columbian. He can be reached by phone at 360-735-4538 or e-mail at tim.martinez@columbian.com

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