Don’t look for Union to defend its Class 3A Greater St. Helens League football title.
Ain’t gonna happen.
The official allocations for state playoffs will not be announced by the WIAA for a few more weeks. But coaches believe the top three 4A GSHL teams will earn state preliminary playoff berths. Three 3A GSHL teams also will play in state qualifiers. In the 2A GSHL, the top two teams will play the Nos. 2 and 3 teams from the 2A Evergreen. (The No. 1 team from the Evergreen will get an automatic berth to state.) And in the Trico, the top four teams make the district playoffs.
That does not mean the Titans won’t win a league title in 2010, though. Just won’t be the 3A GSHL.
And the Titans won’t play rival Camas this either.
Change happens every year in high school sports, but 2010 will see more than the average filling of the roster spots vacated by last season’s seniors.
Reclassification has turned the 4A GSHL from a six-team league into a five-team league and the 3A GSHL is now a seven-team lineup.
Union and Camas — schools less than five miles apart — are not facing each other in 2010, with Union in the 4A GSHL and Camas in the 3A GSHL.
That seems absurd for some fans. If you recall, the two teams played an epic contest in Week 9 last year to determine the 3A GSHL crown. Union rallied from a 17-point deficit, scoring three touchdowns in the final nine minutes of the game for a 35-31 victory. That only told part of the story. Doc Harris Stadium was standing room only after the fans who arrived hours before kickoff filled the seats.
The Titans and Papermakers will be on the same field later this week, but not facing each other. Camas will play Timberline of Lacey at 3 p.m. Saturday at Qwest Field in Seattle. At 5:30, Union is taking on two-time defending 3A state champion Bellevue at the home of the Seahawks.
“The one week we could have matched up was Week 1,” Union coach Cale Piland said, referring to all the hurdles with scheduling because of reclassification. Both teams were invited to play in the Emerald City Kickoff Classic, but “it didn’t make sense to travel all that way to Seattle to play each other,” Piland said.
The only other option was to say no to the Classic, and that was not going to happen.
“You have to take that opportunity for your kids,” Piland said. “You can’t pass up the opportunity to play at Qwest Field.”
“Who wouldn’t be excited?” asked Camas coach Jon Eagle, referring to the Classic. “How many teams in the state of Washington are playing in it? Seven? And we’re one of them.”
Piland said it will not be be long before Union vs. Camas is be back on the docket.
Heck, it could be two years from now, after another reclassification possibly pushes Camas into the 4A GSHL in 2012.
Mountain View began the 2000s as one of the top 4A programs in the area, withback-to-back state Class 4A semifinal appearances in 2001-02. But now Mountain View is now a 3A program. Kelso also dropped from the 4A to the 3A GSHL.
Ridgefield is leaving rival Woodland in the 2A GSHL and will be back in the same league with rival La Center as a 1A program in the Trico.
Southwest Washington is accustomed to realignment. The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association goes through reclassification after every two school years. Kelso, for example, was a 3A school before the 2008-09 season, then spent two years as a 4A school and now is returning to 3A.
This year’s change, however, has led to an odd number of teams in the three GSHLs, including an unbalanced 4A and 3A. The two higher classification leagues usually enjoy playing non-league games against each other in all sports, and scheduling those contests was easier when the leagues were balanced. In football, the 4A GSHL teams will play five non-league games and four league games. The 3A GSHL will play three non-league games and six league games.
It also means league byes, so there is a team from each league that will be playing a non-league game in Week 9.
So, including the league byes and the fact that each league has a different number of available non-league games, it can turn into some tricky equations.
Union, in the 4A GSHL, does not have a league game until Week 6 and then will play four consecutive league games. Heritage and Skyview face off in a 4A GSHL game in Week 3, but the Skyview does not return to league play until Week 6.
Camas, Mountain View, Columbia River, and Kelso have 3A GSHL games in Week 2.
The realignment has affected the smaller schools, as well. Like the 4A GSHL, the 2A GSHL is a five-team league now that Ridgefield has moved to 1A. And the Trico League is part of a “super conference,” if you will. The Trico and Evergreen leagues have eight teams each, forming one 16-team district. The top four teams in each league will cross over to play each other for berths to state.
The way reclassification is headed, don’t be surprised for more changes.
La Center coach John Lambert remembers not too long ago being in the same league with Woodland, Ridgefield and then newcomer Hockinson.
“Once Hockinson and Woodland go down (to 1A),” Lambert predicted, “it’s going to be our old 2A league, so it’s not going to be a huge difference.”
