Haines Borough School District officials said this week they’re not planning to “opt up” to join larger schools under a sports reclassification plan that would push Haines into a new 2A division for basketball and volleyball starting 2012-13.
The district has until Feb. 18 to make a decision on the matter. New conferences will be established at the Feb. 21 meeting of the Alaska School Activities Association. The final configuration will be determined by Oct. 2011 school enrollment figures.
The ASAA board of directors voted Dec. 14 to adopt a reclassification plan for high school sports that would create a new 3A Southeast basketball and volleyball conference for schools with 151 to 500 students. It would include Sitka High School, Mount Edgecumbe and Petersburg.
With about 100 students, Haines would move into a 2A division for schools with 61 to 150 students. Three other schools that currently compete in 3A – Wrangell, Craig and Metlakatla – would also move into 2A.
Under the new system, schools with 5 to 60 students would be reclassified as 1A. That would include all the Southeast schools playing basketball at the 2A level.
“We really don’t have a choice in the matter. It’s something ASAA voted on. They said no matter which way they go, somebody’s not going to be happy with it,” Haines School activities director Tiana Taylor said this week.
Taylor said it wouldn’t make sense for Haines to be in the new 3A, as that division may soon include Ketchikan, which has a declining enrollment but would still be close to 500 students. She said it’s also unlikely Haines would “opt up” in volleyball.
ASAA executive director Gary Matthews said the change is being driven by smaller, 4A teams in the Railbelt that have had difficulty competing against the state’s largest schools, and by some smaller 3A schools there that also have not been competitive under the current arrangement.
Monroe Catholic of Fairbanks is the only school in the state that wants to “opt up” to 3A under the new system, Matthews said. “We really aren’t getting much resistance, except from Petersburg,” which would rather be in the new 2A, he said.
The change is the first to the classification system since 1983, Matthews said, and some complaints are inevitable. “No matter where you put the number, there’s always going to be schools at the very top of a classification and ones at the very bottom.”
The change doesn’t mean Haines can’t play former foes like Petersburg and Mount Edgecumbe; it’s just that those games won’t count as conference play, he said.
Southeast’s schools mostly opposed the changes. “It mixes around all these traditional rivalries we’ve had in Southeast for years,” said Haines superintendent Michael Byer. “I don’t think anybody in Southeast is very happy about it. It’s an unfolding saga. There’s two years before it goes into play.”
He noted that good teams sometimes defy the classification system, noting a Skagway girls’ basketball team that has been beating squads from larger schools. “When the stars line up just right, you can have a Goliath-slayer.”
Mount Edgecumbe high school officials testified in favor of lowering a proposed 3A cap from 181 to 151 students. It was concerned about being left in a Southeast division with only Sitka High School, according to the Sitka Sentinel.
The Sentinel reported that Andrew Friske, a Mount Edgecumbe administrator who grew up in Haines and played basketball for the Glacier Bears, said he would have preferred to keep the current, seven-team 3A Southeast conference. He likes the traditional rivalries in Southeast, and told the Sentinel that the last two Region V tournaments, with seven teams competing in a double-elimination format, have been some of the most exciting on record.
Friske told the Sentinel he was aware of the changes and the plan was the “best we could have hoped for.”
The ASAA plan allows schools to “opt-up” in a single sport.
Schools including Angoon, Gustavus, Hoonah, Kake, Skagway and Yakutat will weigh “opting up” to compete against Haines and the new 2A schools.
Those schools and five others in Southeast have enrollments under 50 students, and have been opting up to compete in the 2A conference because Southeast gets two berths to state in that division, according to the Sentinel.
The Sentinel reported that under the new plan, ASAA will expand the 1A state tournament from eight to 16 teams, with Southeast “getting one, if not two, state berths.”
“The small schools in Southeast have had a good deal of success at the 2A state tournament, but now seem more likely to remain in the 1A conference. The 1A division is by far the biggest in the state, with an estimated 129 schools. By comparison, 20 schools will be in the new 3A and 4A divisions, and 18 in the new 2A,” the Sentinel reported.
According to ASAA, there are 82 students at Craig High and 79 at Metlakatla. Haines is listed with an enrollment of 100 students, and Wrangell has 120. Sitka had about 370 students, while there are approximately 395 students at Mount Edgecumbe.
Changes include broadening the 1A-2A-3A wrestling conference to schools with under 500 students, up from 400. That classification already is in place for track and cross-country.