New FHSAA districts coming

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New FHSAA districts coming

Sports

Friday, 03 December 2010 10:37

News-Gazette Photo/Andrew Sullivan

Gateway’s Erick Marino (23) goes up to block Harmony’s Daniel East (1) during their basketball game Tuesday at the Panther gym.

Several county high schools will play in different classes

By Rick Pedone
Sports Editor
Liberty should be a Class 5A football program and Celebration will move up to Class 4A when the Florida High School Athletic Association revises its districts for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.
The FHSAA is working on the new plan, which should be announced later this month.

Poinciana likely will drop from Class 4A to 3A in football, based on the most recent student population figures, and the county’s four other football programs should remain the same: Gateway in Class 6A, Osceola in Class 5A, and Harmony and St. Cloud in Class 4A.
The FHSAA Board of Directors also elected to expand from six to eight classes in other team sports, adding Class 7A and a Rural Division.
The FHSAA bi-annually revises its districts to account for shifting student population.
The fall attendance reports for the local high schools shows that Gateway (2,329) remains the largest school in the county, but its attendance has slipped to the point where it is near the cutoff for Class 5A (population range of 1,926-2,300 for football).
Liberty (2,194) now is the second-largest high school in the county, followed by Osceola (1,972), Celebration (1,874), Harmony (1,854), St. Cloud (1,743) and Poinciana (1,230). Charter high school New Dimensions reported 353 students in attendance. Private schools City of Life Academy, Life Christian Academy and Southland Christian Academy all should remain in Class A.
After releasing the new district plan, the FHSAA will give member schools an opportunity to appeal.
Schools can appeal to go up to a higher classification to save on travel expenses. Schools also can appeal if their student population falls close to a cutoff point.
The population ranges for the other football classes are: Class 6A: over 2,300; Class 4A: 1,581-1,925; Class 3A: 1,100-1,580; Class 2A: 691-1,099; Class 2B: 281-690; Class 1A Urban: 47-280; Class 1A Rural: 44-600.
The Class A Urban and Rural divisions replace the current Class 1A and 1B classifications. The new Rural class is designed to allow small public high schools to be more competitive in the state playoff series.
With the new population numbers, football district 5A-4, where Osceola now competes with Lakeland and Lakeland George Jenkins, could possibly expand to include Liberty, Davenport Ridge Community (2,080), Lake Region (1,956) and Haines City (1,986) next season.
Liberty Coach David Benson said he will prepare his team for that possibility.
“We’ll have to step up. Everyone will have to work a little harder,” Benson said.
But, as Benson pointed out, it is too early to predict what the new districts will look like.
“We’ve got to see how it plays out,” he said. “I guess we’ll know in February.”
Gateway Athletic Director George Sullivan said the school may petition to drop to Class 5A for football.
“We are deliberating which lion’s den we want to play in,” Sullivan said.
Osceola High Football Coach Doug Nichols said it is possible that the Kowboys and Liberty may be moved to another area, such as Brevard County, where the Kowboys played in the late ‘90s and early 2000s.
“It’s been done before, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again,” Nichols said.
Another possibility is that the Osceola County Class 5A teams may join with Lake County-area teams.
Celebration may replace Poinciana in football district 4A-7, which included Harmony, St. Cloud, Liberty, Edgewater and East River the past two seasons. East River (2,012) will move to Class 5A.
Poinciana may drop into Celebration’s spot in district 3A-9 with Auburndale, Lake Nona, Winter Haven, Lake Wales, Sebring and Tenoroc.
Gateway has played in district 6A-6 the past two seasons with Boone, Cypress Creek, Dr. Phillips, Freedom and Oak Ridge. Oak Ridge (1,856) appealed to play up two classes during the 2008 reclassification but likely will stay in Class 4A next season, probably in 4A-7.
The new population guidelines for other team sports (baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball, soccer) are: 7A: 2,260-over; 6A: 1,892-2,259; 5A: 1,599-1,891; 4A: 1,217-1,598; 3A: 525-1,260; 2A: 162-524; 1A: 18-161; Rural: 44-600.
Soccer begins at Class 2A.
Under the new classification format for other team sports, Osceola and Liberty will move from Class 5A to 6A, Gateway goes to 7A; Harmony, Celebration and St. Cloud move from 4A to 5A, and Poinciana will drop from Class 4A to 3A. New Dimensions (Class 2A) and City of Life, Southland Christian and Life Academy (Class A) will remain where they are.
The FHSAA Board of Directors will meet in January to approve the new districts. The football coaches have pushed their district scheduling meetings back a month from January to February.
The FHSAA was inundated with appeals two years ago, when the organization initially attempted to install large “super districts” for football, but that plan fell apart because of increased travel requirements. The FHSAA will attempt to place a minimum of four schools and no more than eight schools in each district for the next two seasons.
Individual sports, such as golf, wrestling, tennis and swimming, are grouped into fewer classes depending upon how many schools statewide participate in each sport.