Next Season’s Leagues Take Shape Gsl To Stick Together In 4a, But Numbers Down In 3a

Until the numbers are crunched and released by the state, nothing can be cast in concrete.

However, the fallout from reclassification has just about settled.

The addition of a fifth high school classification for next fall made for a chaotic fall in Eastern Washington, where the new plan doesn’t make much sense.

The final date to count student enrollment passed last week and should be available before Christmas. A school’s classification is determined by the average enrollment in grades 10 through 12 on Oct. 1, Nov. 1 and Dec. 1.

Most schools know where they fit in and are planning accordingly.

The last piece of the puzzle should fall into place Tuesday when the Colville school board decides if the Indians are going to 3A or 2A. Colville has the option because Panorama Alternative School has been accepted into the Panorama League, dropping Colville below the 3A cutoff (601).

All GSL schools below the 4A enrollment level (1,201) decided to stick with the league at the highest level. With the addition of Mount Spokane-Mead, the GSL is 10 teams except for football next fall. The Wildcats will play an independent schedule in football because they will have no seniors.

The 3A Frontier League is going to be made up of West Valley, East Valley, Cheney and Clarkston. In football, teams will probably play each other twice for six of the nine games. They could play each other up to five times in basketball, filling 15 of 20 dates.

The Frontier formally invited the GSL schools below the 4A enrollment to join the league and, apparently, got serious consideration from at least one for a while.

The new 2A league (301-600) has five teams from the current Northeast A and three current Frontier schools, Pullman, Riverside and Colville.

Only three schools make up the A league - Colfax, Freeman and Kettle Falls.

The three will have full schedules. A meeting last week to schedule fall sports left District 7 executive secretary Russ Brown pleased. “I’ve never seen such a spirit of cooperation,” he said.

District 9 and every Idaho school from Moscow north joined the District 7 schools and everyone came out with a full schedule. All schedules are being cross-checked at the present time. Incidentally, Colville scheduled as a 2A school.

Northeast B-11 football was split up to reflect the basketball leagues, Bi-County and Panorama. Odessa and Cusick moved up from B-8, Cusick going to the Panorama, Odessa to the Bi-County. Those two 8-man semifinal opponents would prefer to stay down but no amendment to protect 8-man can be voted on until April.

Eight-man will be down to 15 teams. It takes 24 teams statewide to have a state championship, but 8-man football should survive because of a grandfather clause. There may be a statewide meeting for all B football schools to discuss the fate of 8-man.

Next up is determining allotments to state playoffs. That will be done in January. , DataTimes