Galt looks for SVC exit
For the last seven years, Galt and Liberty Ranch have competed in athletics in the Sierra Valley Conference.
In the 2010-11 school year, Galt dominated Liberty Ranch in almost every sport. But the Hawks have soared past the Warriors in football, volleyball, boys and girls basketball, baseball and softball. Most times in lopsided games that have led to game officials call for a running clock, or in the case of baseball and softball, called after five innings because of the 10-run mercy rule. The only sports that the two schools have been even with each other is boys and girls soccer.
Now Galt wants to leave the current Division IV conference for a D-VI league.
At Wednesday’s monthly meeting among SVC athletic directors and commissioner John Williams, Galt High Athletic Director Nicole Silvey announced that Galt plans to make a request to the Sac-Joaquin Section to join the Sierra Delta League for the 2018-22 league realignment cycle. The section’s third of five scheduled public meetings will be held at The Reserve at Spanos Park in Stockton next Thursday at 9 a.m.
In the current league realignment four-year cycle that runs from fall 2014 to spring 2018, the SVC is D-IV and the SDL is D-VI. Under the current proposal, the SVC would have Galt, Liberty Ranch, El Dorado, Union Mine and Rosemont. Bradshaw Christian of Elk Grove, which is currently in the SDL, would join the SVC, which is proposed to become D-V. Bradshaw Christian would take the place of Cordova, which has been suggested to move to a new D-IV Sacramento area league.
According to the section’s Website, Galt has an enrollment of 925 students. All of the current and proposed SVC schools, other than Bradshaw Christian, have four-figure enrollments, with Cordova the highest at 1,692. Bradshaw Christian, which has become a smallschool powerhouse in football, boys and girls basketball and baseball, has an enrollment of 343. Liberty Ranch’s enrollment, per the section’s Website, is 1,176.
The pros and cons for Galt joining the SDL is competing against schools that are similar to its competitive equity. Galt has struggled on the varsity and frosh-soph levels for more than five years.
“We would be more competitive, and we would be facing schools that are generally more like us in terms of the competition,” Silvey said. “The ideal we’re vying to the committee is that our student-athletes are our first priority. We’ve given so much consideration.”
Williams added, “We, as a league, are scrambling to find a (school) to replace Galt. The SVC is more than happy to accommodate Galt in its wish to leave.”
The SDL, under the current proposal, includes Encina of Sacramento, Golden Sierra of Garden Valley, Highlands, Natomas, Rio Vista, San Juan of Citrus Heights and Vacaville Christian.
Williams said Natomas wants out of the SDL, and to join the proposed D-IV league with Cordova, which includes Laguna Creek of Elk Grove, plus
Florin, Johnson, Valley and West Campus — all in Sacramento.
Another pro for the Galt football program would be rotating with SDL schools every other year for home and home games. But in round-robin sports, Galt would have to travel into the deep part of the foothills to Golden Sierra, located in El Dorado County between Shingle Springs and Placerville, to the Delta where Rio Vista is located and Vacaville.
“We, at Galt will incur more transportation costs than Liberty Ranch,” Silvey said.
Williams is working on a plan that would allow Galt to leave the SVC, and have a sixth high school that is similar in enrollment and athletic strengths to the conference. Two schools Williams is looking are Cordova to remain in the SVC, and/or Casa Roble of Orangevale, which is proposed to enter the Golden Empire League that would be D-IV. Currently, Casa Roble is in the Capital Athletic League, which is DIII.
The idea of Galt wanting to depart from the SVC to the SDL surfaced from a Galt Joint Union High School Board of Trustee who attended the section’s second league realignment meeting toward the end of last week. Angela Da Prato, in her second four-year term on the board, spoke as a private citizen at the meeting, recommending Liberty Ranch be placed in the same new league as Cordova.
“In the past, the board has received complaints about Liberty Ranch and Galt competing in the same league because of the differential in talent,” Da Prato said.
Will DeBoard, who is the section’s director of communications, added, “She spoke about not representing the board other than herself.”
Da Prato admitted she didn’t offer another school to replace Liberty Ranch. She said hadn’t contacted other schools similar to Galt and Liberty Ranch’s enrollments, and felt that wouldn’t be right to suggested it unless she spoke with a school’s representative.
Williams strongly disagreed with Da Prato’s suggestion. He said he was surprised Da Prato did not offer at least one, if not two, more schools that are similar to the rest of the SVC’s enrollment numbers and athletic strengths to replace Liberty Ranch, which along with Galt, is part of six schools in the conference.
“Her suggestion to move it make it a five team league just wouldn’t work,” De Board said.
Liberty Ranch Principal Joe Saramago wants the Hawks to remain in the SVC for the next league realignment cycle.
“Liberty Ranch is happy where we are in the SVC, and has no intention of moving,” Saramago said.
Silvey said she would welcome playing Liberty Ranch in non-league games in some sports in 2018, should the section’s league realignment committee approve of Galt’s move to shift to the SDL.