Woonsocket, Burrillville, Lincoln moved to Division II
WARWICK — Success can come at a hefty price.
In the R.I. Interscholastic League, this double-edged sword is sharpened every few years or so when the time comes to realign the divisions.
Caught in the crosshairs are non-Division I teams that have achieved and sustained success over a designated period of time. Add a dash of enrollment and presto, what appears is a surefire recipe for relocation to a higher division.
At Monday’s meeting at RIIL headquarters, the Principals’ Committee on Athletics approved realignment proposals for the 2018 and 2019 fall seasons for football, field hockey, boys soccer, girls soccer, girls tennis, and girls volleyball. Locally, the biggest changes can be found in football where several perennial playoff clubs will compete against a higher caliber of competition.
For the next two years, the state’s gridiron landscape will include four divisions. That’s a return to how matters were settled prior to the 2016 season, which saw the introduction of a three-division system with sub-divisions within each division.
The Division I landscape will welcome Shea, one of the more successful D-II teams over the past few seasons and a Super Bowl champion as recently as 2016. The Raiders are one of three new D-I schools, joined by Moses Brown and North Kingstown.
Shea will be in Division I-A along with Bishop Hendricken, Cranston East, North Kingstown, Cumberland, East Providence, and St. Raphael. In Division I-B, you have defending state champion La Salle, Portsmouth, Moses Brown, Barrington, South Kingstown, Cranston West, and Central. These schools will play six division games and one crossover contest as part of a seven-game regular-season schedule.
In re-alignment, what goes up must come down. Dropping from the D-I ranks are Woonsocket, Tolman, and Rogers. Those three schools combined to win just three league games last season, with the Tigers going winless in league play over the past two years (0-14).
The Novans will now compete in Division II-A along with twotime D-III Super Bowl champion Burrillville, East Greenwich, West Warwick, Johnston, Classical, and Lincoln.
Lincoln principal and PCOA chairman Kevin McNamara expressed some apprehension at the new world that awaits the Lions, a regular D-III playoff participant over the past few years.
In Division II-B, there’s Mt. Hope, Middletown, Rogers, Westerly, Juanita Sanchez/PCD/ Wheeler co-op, Mount Pleasant, and Coventry. Like Division I, D-II will play seven regular-season games (six division games and one crossover).
Tolman was relocated to Division III with North Providence, Smithfield, Central Falls, Narragansett, Pilgrim, and Chariho. In the re-established Division IV, the North Smithfield/ Mount St. Charles Co-op team will compete against Tiverton, Hope, Toll Gate, Exeter/West Greenwich, Ponaganset, and Scituate. Division III and IV teams will play six league games against teams in the same division plus one crossover as part of a seven-game regular season card.
The playoff format represents drastic changes from past practices.
In Division I, the top team in I-A and I-B will play for the state championship on Nov. 9. Eight of the remaining 14 teams will qualify for the playoffs (four from I-A and four from I-B) and embark on a three-round journey. The quarterfinals will be Nov. 2, the semifinals on Nov. 9, and the finals on Nov. 17.
In Division II, the top four teams in II-A and II-B will begin their playoff quest with the semifinals on Nov. 2 followed by the semis on Nov. 9 and the championship on Nov. 17. Division III and Division IV teams will be grouped together with the top two teams in each division qualifying for the second season. The semifinals are Nov. 9 with the D-III/IV Super Bowl set for Nov. 17.
Tom Mezzanotte, RIIL executive director, said Monday that having the public schools and private schools operate in separate universes was one option as part of the survey that was distributed to the schools. That proposal was universally rejected.
The decision to crown Super Bowl champs before Thanksgiving will eliminate the conundrum that coaches run into every holiday about whether to rest the starters with a bigger, more important game on tap 10 days later. With three Super Bowls slated the Saturday before Thanksgiving, it will be interesting to see what happens to schools who prefer to play the night before the holiday. The RIIL has a rule about the number of days between playoff games and the Thanksgiving contest (four).
• In other realignment news, the Burrillville girls soccer team is getting bumped up to the state’s top division after winning the Division II title last season. Burrillville High principal and PCOA member Michael Whaley said Monday the Broncos requested to remain in Division II, saying the program is losing 15 seniors to graduation and will mainly field a team of underclassmen over the next few years.
In girls tennis, Cumberland requested to move down to Division II, but will remain in Division I. For the first time, field hockey teams will be broken up into three divisions. Division II will include Cumberland, Burrillville, and Lincoln while Woonsocket moves down to D-III.
A change was also made to the playoff format in field hockey where a series of five shots on goal will be taken by individual players in a 1-on-1 situation (attacker vs. goalkeeper) in the event the game is still tied after two overtime periods.
• Citing a request the Interscholastic League received from a young man from Florida who wished to play hockey at Mount St. Charles despite his parents’ address being listed in the Sunshine State, the PCOA made a rules revision concerning boarding students.
The rule will now read, “Students boarding in member schools whose parental residence is outside the State of Rhode Island must have their athletic eligibility determined on an individual basis. Until such students are ruled eligible by the Committee, they may not participate in any contest of a member school.”
• Joseph Goho, principal at North Providence High School and PCOA member, has been named RIIL Administrator of the Year and will be honored sometime this spring at the league’s banquet at the Crowne Plaza. Goho is also the vice chairman of the Lincoln School Committee.