Port Townsend and Chimacum are teaming up with the Nisqually League again.
The two Jefferson County schools left the league during the last WIAA reclassification cycle two years ago and helped form the four-team Olympic League 1A Division with Klahowya and Coupeville.
The Nisqually League was further gutted by other schools, such as Cedar Park Christian and Life Christian, leaving for other leagues, which left the league with only five schools.
Four of those five schools have football teams: Cascade Christian, Charles Wright Academy, Vashon and Bellevue Christian (the fifth school is Seattle Christian).
Starting this fall, the Olympic League 1A and the four football-playing Nisqually schools have agreed to combine for the upcoming football seasons.
It will work something like this: the first three weeks will be nonleague games, and over the next seven weeks — Weeks 4 through 10 — the two leagues will play against each other.
At the end of the 10 weeks, the two teams — or three, depending on how many berths the West Central District is allocated — with the best records will advance to the state playoffs.
“Here’s the bonus,” Port Townsend athletic director Scott Wilson said, “no more crossover games, no more pigtail games, no funky agreements to decide who is No. 1 or 2.”
Another bonus: no more playing teams more than once in a single season.
Port Townsend’s football teams has amassed a 17-4 overall record (11-1 in league play) in the two seasons since the creation of the Olympic League 1A Division. The Redhawks have defeated Chimacum and Klahowya four times apiece over those two season and Coupeville three times.
And, because of the previous West Central District postseason agreement with the Nisqually League, Port Townsend also played two Nisqually schools three times in the past two seasons, beating Bellevue Christian three times and going 2-1 against Charles Wright.
That means 15 of the Redhawks’ 17 wins came against five schools.
Port Townsend had Bellevue Christian and Charles Wright on its regular season schedules the past two seasons, and then faced one in each of the past two state play-in games.
The 2014 meetings with Charles Wright were particularly problematic because they were played seven days apart (Week 9 and 10) and both were at Memorial Field in Port Townsend.
The Redhawks closed out the regular season with 49-6 win over Charles Wright at home. Then, a week later, Charles Wright came back to Memorial Field and defeated Port Townsend 24-14.
Both teams knew they would be playing again the following week and the same location, so essentially, the Week 9 game was meaningless.
“This way, every game counts,” Wilson said of the new setup. “If we had a crossover in Week 10, that ninth week might not even count.”
There will still be separate Olympic and Nisqually league champions, so Weeks 4-10 are almost like a round-robin district tournament.
Beginning this fall, the WIAA will switch its reclassification cycles from two years to four years.
However, Wilson said, the Olympic 1A and Nisqually athletic directors will meet after two years to evaluate the agreement and discuss whether to continue it.
Wilson said that there also is a possibility that, in the future, a similar agreement also will be discussed for some of the other sports, but nothing is currently in the works.
Wilson has already started putting together the Redhawks’ nonleague schedule, and said he currently has Sequim and Port Angeles “penciled” in for Weeks 1 and 2, and it working on setting up a Week 3 game against a Whatcom County team, possibly Mount Baker.
Forks staying put
The Olympic League 1A Division hopes to eventually grow bigger than four teams.
Wilson said the league, as it did when it was forming in 2014, asked Forks to join.
Forks, though, again declined, and will remain a member of the Evergreen 1A League.
Forks athletic director Kevin Rawie took the idea to the schools administration, which decided to stick with the Evergreen League.
“The Olympic League is in so much flux that my school is not in favor of making a change,” Rawie said.
Klahowya has one of the largest enrollments in 1A, and Coupeville has one of the smallest, so each schools is on the verge of going up and down each classification cycle, which could alter the dynamic of Olympic League 1A.
Wilson, though, isn’t worried about that.
“We’re stable. We’re solid for four years,” he said.
Although Forks isn’t making a change, the Evergreen 1A League also will look significantly different starting this fall.
Rochester and Aberdeen, which were members of the 1A league the past two years despite having 2A enrollments, will next year move to the Evergreen 2A League.
And Eatonville’s enrollment has bumped it up to 2A, and it will join the South Puget Sound League.
That leaves Evergreen 1A with five schools: Forks, Elma, Hoquiam, Montesano and Tenino.
“That leaves us with five schools, and that creates some problems, obviously, with trying to create schedules, especially a football schedule,” Rawie said.
Instead of having seven league football games set up and needing to find two nonleague games, the Spartans now have only four league contest and need to round up five nonleague games.
Rawie has gotten to work on filling up the slate, and said he is wrapping up a Week 1 matchup against Vashon for the second year in a row.
He also is working on setting up games with Castle Rock and King’s Way Christian, two schools from the Trico League.
Trico League will be down one school because Kalama is now in the 2B enrollment range, and Rawie said the Evergreen 1A and Trico athletic directors have discussed working together on scheduling.
There are limits to that.
“Obviously, White Salmon does not want to drive all the way up to play in Forks, and we don’t want to go all the way down there to play them,” Rawie said.
Olympic 2A intact
There won’t be any changes for Port Angeles and Sequim’s league, Olympic 2A, will retain the same seven-school setup as the past two years.
There was a potential that Central Kitsap, a 3A school located in Silverdale, would join the league, but it appears that isn’t going to happen.
“We are proceeding with the Olympic League intact, without changes,” Sequim athletic director Dave Ditlefsen said in an email. “CK will likely stay in the Narrows 3A.”
North Olympic League
The North Olympic League appears to have dodged a bullet, and likely will remain the same for the volleyball, basketball and track and field teams of Clallam Bay, Crescent and Neah Bay.
“As long as there isn’t an 11:59 change,” Crescent athletic director Dave Bingham said Friday, adding that everything was supposed to be approved by the WIAA over the weekend.
The WIAA released its final classification numbers last week, and Neah Bay’s enrollment figure of 81.43 was the largest in Class 1B.
Those numbers, though referred to as final, are still up for appeal, but Bingham didn’t think that Neah Bay would be bumped up if any schools who win their appeals and move down to 1B.
“I think actually the line has been drawn — the 81.47, that is the cut line,” Bingham said.
A handful of traditional 1B schools were bumped up to 2B, including Crosspoint, Muckleshoot Tribal, Seattle Lutheran, Lyle-Wishram and Liberty Christian.
Although Clallam Bay and Crescent have been on the unpleasant receiving end of Neah Bay’s recent football and basketball dominance, Bingham said it is better for the three schools to stick together.
“Just in terms of health of the league,” he said, “it’s really good that Neah Bay remains 1B.”
The Northwest Football League also should retain its current form, or at least something similar.
Bingham said that it appears Lopez will not have a football team for the second straight year, which would leave the Northwest Football League with Neah Bay, Clallam Bay, Crescent, Lummi and Tulalip Heritage.
However, that fivesome could be a foursome if Clallam Bay isn’t able to field a football team, which is possible considering the Bruins will lose three seniors from a team that struggled to suit up 11 players at the end of the 2015 season.
SeaTac League
Quilcene athletic director Mark Thompson said the Rangers’ teams will remain part of the SeaTac League.
However, he said that the league will be changing, though he said he wouldn’t know details until later this week.
The changes likely have to do with SeaTac League schools such as Crosspoint, Muckleshoot Tribal and Seattle Lutheran being moved up from Class 1B to 2B.
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Sports Editor Lee Horton can be reached at 360-417-3525 or at lhorton@peninsuladailynews.com.
