Ridger Sports — Shiloh set to leave conference; to petition for 5A classification

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

The numbers have been crunched, some faces have been scrunched and the Arkansas Activities Association has released the long awaited reclassification lists for the 2012-2014 school terms.

The released data will lead to a number of changes affecting Blackhawk athletics, most notably their association with their long time conference foe Shiloh. Shiloh has been assigned to compete in 3A, a move that has Shiloh coaches and administrators seeking a waiver to another classification.

Not wishing to compete at the 3A level, and probably wishing even more to escape the 4A-1 district, Shiloh has petitioned or will petition the AAA to be moved to the 5A classification. Rule changes last year allow private schools the choice to move to a higher classification if they so wish.

According to Shiloh Coach Josh Floyd, the extreme success they have been having playing at the 4A level in every sport probably means that they will be just as good competing on the 5A level. I suppose they feel that playing 3A sports would be beneath them.

This past year, the 4A-1 District schools voted to exclude Shiloh from any participation in junior high athletics. The AAA handbook frowns upon districts excluding schools that the AAA has assigned to a particular conference. As a matter of fact, any conference that does so faces the penalty of having all the other league teams banned from state competition. However, since junior high athletics don’t have state competitions, there was no penalty for dropping Shiloh from 4A-1 district junior high competition. Thus, the only way for Shiloh to get their junior high athletes back into district competition was to either move up or down in their classification.

I think the Shiloh bravado might be a bit misplaced. Another rule change enacted last year makes any athlete Shiloh recruits from another school to their school ineligible for a year.

For example, under this rule, the star quarterback Shiloh lured away from West Fork four years ago would have been forced to sit out a year of sports and do nothing. I think, had the rule been in place four years ago, Shiloh’s star studded senior class would have never been as all but one were transfers in, some even from out of state.

Like public schools, Shiloh will have to take the kids that have gone to Shiloh from elementary and up to build their future dynasty. They can still recruit in grades six and under, and if they can get them enrolled before their seventh grade year, they can avoid the year long sit out penalty. That kind of recruiting is kind of dicey, however, as no one canreally tell whether a sixth grader is destined for athletic greatness. In case folks might disbelieve that type of scenario could take place, there have already been local elementary kids here who were approached by boosters to entice them to transfer.

With Shiloh headed out the door, who will take their place? With the current numbers, it would appear all but certain Shiloh will be replaced by Lincoln. A 3A school for the past several years, Lincoln has seen their enrollment steadily rising and they have been assigned to 4A in the next cycle. Lincoln’s 302 enrollment pegs them as the 41st biggest 4A school, not far behind Gentry’s 313 student population, 39th in the state.

Pea Ridge has risen to 30th out of the 48 schools in 4A with 340 high school kids. Farmington hung on to 4A status by just three students. They will be the largest 4A school in the state at an enrollment of 480, just short of the 5A’s smallest school, Monticello, with 483. Monticello most likely hopes that Shiloh gets the nod to move up as that would push them down into the 4A class.

The Shiloh move would also move Fountain Lake from 4A to 3A, a development they would most likely appreciate as they have been a longtime 3A member. With Farmington still growing, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them move up to 5A in the next cycle.

Gravette is the ninth biggest school in 4A, with 429 high schoolers, with Berryville ranked 14th with 404 kids. Ozark is right behind Berryville in 15th with 403 students while Prairie Grove rates 20th, with an enrollment of 385.

Clarksville is moving up

In a move that will certainly gladden the hearts of 4A basketball coaches everywhere, the Clarksville Panthers will be moving to 5A. The freshman/sophomore dominated (actually the Lee family dominated) Panthers won the state 4A crown this past year and are overwhelming favorites to win it all for the next two to three years. As they play in our region, I’m sure the coaches in northwest Arkansas are even more pleased with this news.

Siloam hopes to change reclassification

In a move to keep their fuel bill from becoming astronomical, Siloam Springs has offered up a new plan to the AAA and its member schools to consider.

As things are, the Panthers have been assigned as a member of the 6A classification for the next cycle.

That means that they will more than likely be playing three conference games in Little Rock with other long trips to Mountain Home and Searcy. Their “close” conference game would be with Russellville. Besides the fact that they would most likely do quite poorly on that level of play, theirparticipation in that classification would have their students participating in sports, spending a whole lot of their time riding in school buses.

Siloam has the 29th largest high school in the state.

Their superintendent has proposed a new 6A classification composed of the 16 schools currently assigned to 6A status and adding 16 of the biggest 5A schools to the mix. That would move up Vilonia and Alma into Siloam’s district, teams they already play along with Greenwood. The plan would then elevate 16 4A schools into the 5A class, which would leave the 4A with 32 teams instead of 48 with the biggest 16 moving up. That plan would put Farmington, Gravette, Berryville and Ozark into 5A.

The Siloam plan would leave the 4A classification with four districts, with the probable schools of the 4A-1 being Pea Ridge, Lincoln, Gentry, Prairie Grove, Waldron, Pottsville, Subiaco and Dover, with Booneville a possibility.

I’m not sure how things are going to shake out, but Siloam’s move into 6A is going to be hard on a lot of students. However, the new 6A arrangement Siloam has proposed creates problems for other schools as much as it helps some. The Siloam plan has West Memphis and Van Buren in the same conference, a school on the Tennessee border regularly playing one on the Oklahoma border.

Meanwhile, SpringdaleHar-Ber has introduced a new plan to erase the 7A classification and combine the schools into the 6A class. That would mean that Siloam joins the current 7A West with one of the Fort Smith high schools bumped into the 7A Central. The thought of the Panthers having to take the field against Bentonville, Springdale Har-Ber, Fayetteville and the rest of the behemoths from the 7A West might have the Panthers reconsider even playing football under the Arkansas Activities Association.

Should the Har-Ber plan prevail, Siloam might just emulate Bentonville’s reaction when they were pulled up into the largest school classification back in the 1980s. The then Bentonville AD and football coach withdrew the Tigers from playing football in any classification for a few years, playing as a high school independent. It did not work well with the Tigers finally accepting the inevitable. If Har-Bers’ plan is adopted, the Panthers will have to deal with the fact that they will have half the enrollment of their new conference rivals.

Tough odds.

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Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@ nwaonline.com.

Sports, Pages 7 on 05/04/2011