Same faces, different places
Ronan, Polson will have to adjust to new foes in upcoming sports seasons
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Chiefs to head south to play in new District 6B
The Chiefs and Maidens are making the move to Class B next year. That’s what Ronan knew going into the holiday weekend. What the school didn’t know is where it will be playing in Class B next season.
That’s what the school learned last week when the Montana High School Association announced the conference and district alignments for the 2011-2012 season.
Ronan will be entering the realigned District 6-B next season for football, basketball, volleyball and track and field, the Western Division in Class B-C softball, wrestling and tennis. Ronan will also be in Class B division in cross country.
While the realignment to Class B was exactly what Ronan was expecting, the district the Chiefs and Maidens wound up in was quite different from the one proposed when the school first started looking into making the move down to Class B.
During the time when Ronan was deciding whether or not to change classifications, the proposed district Ronan was to be joining consisted of Bigfork, Eureka, Loyola Sacred Heart, Plains, Mission, Thompson Falls and Troy.
The new District 6-B that Ronan will play in beginning next season will consist of just five teams instead of the proposed eight, including Ronan, Florence-Carlton, Loyola Sacred Heart, Deer Lodge and Mission.
The new district may bring a sigh of relief to bus drivers, as the combined distance to the schools in the district is just 284 miles opposed to the 564 that would have been involved in the originally proposed district. While the distances may be more manageable, the competition in the new district will not be.
The strength of the schools in the new district is most evident in two sports, softball and cross country.
Loyola Sacred Heart has had a chokehold on the competition in Class B boys cross country over the past decade, winning six of the past 10 state championships in the sport including the 2010 title.
While the new district will shake things up in the postseason, Ronan cross country coach Gale Decker says the regular season will pretty much stay the same for the Chiefs and Maidens.
“I was a little surprised by how the new district ended up,” Decker said. “I was really expecting us to end up with the teams north of us. We will still pretty much run in the same meets we have before, though. I just hope they decide to have some sort of district or conference meet after the regular season is over.”
The district’s teams have had the same amount of success on the softball diamond, also taking six of the past 10 Class B championships in the sport. Florence came away with the top spot in 2000, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006 while Loyola Sacred Heart won the title in 2003.
Teams in the new district have represented three of the teams at the state softball tournament the past two seasons as Loyola Sacred Heart, Florence and Deer Lodge made the tournament in 2010 while Sacred Heart, Deer Lodge and Mission made it in 2009.
The district has sent a pair of teams to the boys state basketball tournament the past two seasons and Florence and Sacred Heart went in 2010 while Sacred Heart and Deer Lodge made the tournament in 2009. Loyola sent its girls basketball team to the state tournament in 2010 while Loyolaand Florence both went in 2009.
Loyola’s boys earned the Class B state title in golf last season while also posting the top two individual scored in the state. The school’s girls also earned third at the same tournament.
While the schools in the new district have not been as successful on the track, Florence did finish second in the state in 2009 while Loyola Sacred Heart was fourth.
The district has also sent a pair of teams to the volleyball state tournament the past two seasons as Loyola Sacred Heart made it in both 2009 and 2010 while Florence went this year and Deer Lodge made it in 2009.
Frenchtown added to Northwestern A Conference
Polson will be facing a new conference foe next season after the Montana High School Association decided last week to move Frenchtown into the Northwest A Conference.
Frenchtown will be moving into the conference to fill the vacancy left by Ronan, which elected to move down to Class B earlier this month.
Class A athletic directors made the proposal to move Frenchtown into the Northwest Conference shortly after Ronan made its decision. Frenchtown had been a member of the Class A Southwest Conference.
Also making a move was Butte Central, which moved into the Southwest A Conference to replace Frenchtown.
Frenchtown, with an enrollment of 387, will be the smallest school in the new Northwest A Conference by nearly 80 students. Even with their lower enrollment numbers, the Broncs should quickly become a force in the new conference.
Polson and Frenchtown have had true battles on the football field of late as Frenchtown defeated the Pirates on their way to a state title in 2009. Polson avenged the loss twice this season, defeating the Broncs early in the season before again beating them to knock Frenchtown out of the playoffs in a double-overtime thriller.
“It’s going to be a good move for everyone,” Polson Athletic Director Scott Wilson said. “When you lose a good team like Ronan from your conference, you want them to be replaced by another good team and that’s just what we got with Frenchtown. They have been very successful in many of the sports programs over the past few years, so there shouldn’t be any letdown in the level of competition in the conference with them moving in.”
Frenchtown has had much success on the football field and on the softball diamond over the years, winning a football state title in class A in 2009 and appearing in three title games since 2005. The Broncs also won three state titles in the 1990’s as a Class B program.
The Lady Broncs have seen even more success on the softball field, winning state titles in 2002, 2005 and 2009. The team saw even more prosperity during their time in Class B in the 1990’s, winning four consecutive titles between 1996-1999.
While the addition of Frenchtown to the conference will help add fuel to their budding rivalry with the Pirates, the loss of long-time rival Ronan from the conference schedule will be a hard change to accept.
“It’s going to be hard for us, not having Ronan there in our conference anymore,” Wilson said. “We will still try to play Ronan as much as we can in our nonconference schedule, though. The state lets the schedules in several sports, but (Ronan Athletic Director) Lucky Larson and I will do the best we can to keep the rivalry alive.”
The move will also potentially mean drastic changes on the soccer field, but the MHSA elected to keep Frenchtown in the Southwest Conference in the sport of soccer only.
The introduction of Frenchtown would have meant two less nonconference games for Northwest A soccer teams. Ronan did not play soccer, so the addition of Frenchtown to the Northwest A soccer conference would have added two more conference games for conference foes. That would have left just two spots for nonconference games, thus the decision was made to leave Frenchtown’s soccer team in its current alignment.
While there will be many changes in the Northwest A Conference in the upcoming season, Polson knows one thing for sure, they will be ready to play no matter who they have to face.
“Losing Ronan was tough, but playing Frenchtown is going to bring just as many good games to our schedule,” Wilson said.
