Northwestern District Looks To Expand

Posted: May 14, 2016
By ROB NIEDZWIECKI
The Winchester Star

WINCHESTER — With an eye on making it easier to schedule events, the Northwestern District is looking to expand from five schools to 13 for the 2017-18 school year.

In the plan — which must be approved by the Virginia High School League before it can go into effect — current Northwestern District schools Handley, James Wood, Millbrook, Sherando and Skyline would be joined by six schools from the Evergreen District and two schools from the Bull Run District.

The Evergreen District schools looking to join the conference include four schools who have left the Northwestern District in the last 12 years — Fauquier (last year, 2004-05), Liberty (2006-07), Brentsville (2008-09) and Kettle Run (2008-09). Culpeper and Manassas Park would also join the league. (Sherando activities coordinator Jason Barbe said he’s heard that the only other Evergreen District school, Eastern View, is looking to join the Battlefield District because Eastern View believes there would be too much travel for them in the new Northwestern.)

Two schools from the Bull Run District would also join the Northwestern — Warren County (last in the Northwestern District in 2008-09) and William Monroe. The Bull Run District would be left with only six teams — Group 2A schools Clarke County, Central, Strasburg, George Mason and Madison County, and Group 1A Rappahannock County.

The new Northwestern District would be almost evenly split between Group 4A schools and Group 3A schools. In addition to the four Winchester-Frederick County schools, the other Group 4A schools are Fauquier, Kettle Run and Liberty.

Barbe said each of the 13 schools sent letters to the VHSL last week to approve this new district — the eight looking to join filed requests to join the league, while the five current members sent letters in support of the plan.

The plan must first be discussed by the VHSL Redistricting and Reclassification Committee before a vote can take place. VHSL communication director Mike McCall said no date has been set for their next meeting, but it should take place sometime this summer. McCall said they’ll have to meet before the Executive Committee meets on Sept. 21.

When the VHSL went to a six-classification format for the 2013-14 school year, it created a conference format that currently serves as the opening level of postseason competition.

The VHSL maintained districts strictly to help with scheduling. Schools aren’t necessarily located close to the same teams in their conference, but for the most part they are located close to the teams in their district.

With the VHSL voting in February to do away with conferences and adopting a format in which regions will serve as the opening level of postseason competition beginning in 2017-18, Barbe said he and other athletic directors who are looking to form this district felt a larger district would make more sense from a scheduling standpoint.

Currently, local ADs have been trying to get conference teams on their schedule for tournament seeding, but they’ll no longer have to concern themselves with that beginning in 2017-18.

“Districts are just a scheduling mechanism now,” Barbe said. “I think if you ask any of the ADs [in the Northwestern District], they’ll tell you a five-team district is too small.

“For football, you’ve got to find six games out of your district. For basketball, you’ve got to find 14. For baseball, softball and volleyball you’ve got to find 12 games.”

Barbe noted that finding schools with room for the Northwestern schools on their schedule has often resulted in the district scheduling more games against each other than they’d like. For example, district baseball and softball teams had to play each other three times each in the first year of the conference system.

And even though district schools only need to find eight games for soccer after scheduling each other twice each, twice in the past three years there’s been instances in which teams have had to play each other three times each. (Because West Virginia schools play soccer in the fall, those schools aren’t an option.) This year, the district created a tournament for the Winchester-Frederick County teams in order to get two more games on the schedule.

Millbrook boys’ soccer coach Keith Kilmer said he’ll be OK with whatever system is put in place for the Northwestern District for the future. But if an expanded conference makes it possible to play a larger variety of teams, he won’t mind it.

“I always accept what our schedule is, but I’d rather not have to play a team three times in one season,” Kilmer said.

Though there a lot of scheduling details that would have to be worked out if a new Northwestern District is approved, Barbe said what would likely happen in the team sports of volleyball, basketball, baseball, softball, soccer and tennis is that the Group 4A schools would play each other twice each, and the Group 3A schools would play each other twice each.

Then, in order to fill out the rest of their schedules, the 4A and 3A teams could possibly play against each other. Barbe said he does not think that the new district will require 4A schools to play 3A schools.

Barbe said in order to make this district work, it’s essential that the VHSL grants them schedule flexibility.

For example, in a 13-team district, everyone would not be able to play each other in a 10-game football season. In soccer and tennis (16-contest limitation), if the district set it up where the 4As all played each other twice and all the 3As played each other twice, schools would not be able to play all the teams from the other classification in cross-group scheduling.

Barbe said the ADs in this new district would wait to see if this new district is approved before thinking about scheduling for individual sports like cross country, golf, wrestling, swimming and track.

Barbe said he also doesn’t know if they would figure out a format for determining regular season district champions (which would have no bearing on the postseason anyway) or if the Northwestern all-district teams — which were eliminated this year — would return.

In addition to scheduling, Barbe said this potential new district could benefit teams greatly in terms of regional seeding. (The regional seeding format has yet to be determined.) Beginning in 2017-18, all seven prospective Northwestern 4A schools will compete in the 17-team 4A North Region, and all six 3A schools will compete in the 3A Northeast Region.

While this move might make things easier for the Winchester-Frederick County schools in terms of scheduling, it will make it more difficult for the the Bull Run District schools without having guaranteed games against Warren County and William Monroe.

Clarke County athletic director Casey Childs said he understands why the Northwestern District is trying to expand, because he realizes how hard it can be to fill out schedules.

Childs is dealing with scheduling issues right now in case the Northwestern District’s plan does get approved. Scheduling for football is made particularly difficult for the Bull Run teams because Rappahannock County does not have a football team.

“I still have one more [football] game that I have to schedule [for 2017], but our other five non-district games will all be against schools that are larger than us,” Childs said. “Most of the 2A schools around here are in the [eight-team] Shenandoah District. We’ll just have to figure out some different things with scheduling.”

— Contact Robert Niedzwiecki at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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