9-7 split works well for FS schools

Normally, a 9-7 split is not an easier solution than a simple 8-8 format, but you’d have a hard time convincing the sports teams at Fort Smith Northside and Southside of it.

Northside will rejoin Southside and the rest of the 6A-West Conference teams for all sports except football for the 2022-2024 reclassification cycle. The Arkansas Activities Association changed course with its recent conference assignments for basketball and placed Northside in the 6A-West with Southside, Fayetteville, Bentonville, Bentonville West, Springdale, Springdale Har-Ber, Rogers, Rogers Heritage.

That’s nine teams, which breaks the eight-team mold the AAA has for years preferred for each league. As a result, the Class 6A-Central Conference will consist of seven teams, including Jonesboro, which bumps up from Class 5A to join Bryant, Cabot, Conway, North Little Rock, Little Rock Central, and Little Rock Southwest. Northside will remain in the 7A-Central while Southside plays in the 7A-West again for football.

“Our reaction is two-fold,” said Michael Beaumont, athletic director for Fort Smith Public Schools. “We’re excited for our kids and parents and it’s better going up through the tunnel (Northwest Arkansas) than playing a basketball game and coming back on a Tuesday night from Cabot or Bryant. We are excited and we feel very blessed about it.”

The AAA has a difficult job putting the pieces together with conference assignments for high school sports, especially in a state where the population continues to shift at a brisk pace from east to west and south to north. Still, it’s inconvenient that Northside, a school about two miles from the bridge that crosses into Oklahoma, is looped together with schools from the central part of the state.

Northside and Southside were longtime members of the West before both joined the Central conference for a two-season span in 2012 and 2013. Southside returned two years ago to the West for the first time since the 2015 football season while Northside remained in the 7A-Central.

The Fort Smith Public Schools wanted to remain together in all sports for the 2020-2022 cycle but the district was rejected the AAA Board of Directors. While a 9-7 split works for most sports, it would have led to difficulties in scheduling for football teams in Arkansas’ highest classification.

“We’re still working on the football part of it,” Beaumont said. “Maybe there’s a solution we can come up with at some point.”

There were more recent news for high school sports in Arkansas, including Shiloh Christian’s decision to keep its sports teams together when its girls basketball team could’ve dropped a notch because of the Competitive Equity Factor for non-public schools. The CEF uses a points system based on the team’s overall success in individual sports for non-public schools to determine which classification the state’s non-public schools will be placed.

Had Shiloh elected to let its girls play in Class 3A and the boys play in 4A, it could have led to a scheduling nightmare. It could have meant, for example, Shiloh sending its boys to Gravette and its girls to Valley Springs, schools that are 115 miles from each other, for basketball games on the same night.

Little Rock Christian, meanwhile, decided to go ahead and split its teams in different classifications, with its girls being in Class 5A and its boys dropping to Class 4A. That shouldn’t present a problem with their scheduling, however, because of the number of teams in and around the Little Rock area.

But the biggest news by far is that Northside is reunited in a conference with Southside, a school that is less than 3 miles away, as well as their former longtime competitors in Northwest Arkansas.

“Nothing against the smaller schools, but whether it’s the Central for football or the West for all other sports, we’re going to compete at the highest level,” Beaumont said. “That’s exciting for our teams and our athletes.”