Junior high schedules change

Junior high athletics will have a bit of a different feel schedule-wise for Siloam Springs athletics this school year.

Because of schools along the I-49 corridor adding seventhgrade athletics — including Bentonville, Rogers and Fayetteville most recently — a more defined conference was established among the area schools, which include Siloam Springs. Springdale was the first of the I-49 districts to have seventh-grade athletics while Siloam Springs has offered it for quite sometime.

“It opened up the opportunity to have a seventh-grade conference,” said Siloam Springs athletics director Kevin Downing. “We’d had trouble filling a schedule every year.”

With all districts now playing seventh-grade athletics, it’s changed the landscape on how junior high football, volleyball and basketball will be scheduled.

Football

Seventh-, eighth- and ninthgrade football games will all be played on Thursday nights this fall.

Official game times are still being decided, but it’s likely that seventh-grade games will begin around 5 p.m., followed by eighthgrade at 6 p.m. and then ninth-grade at around 7:30 p.m. Siloam Springs is scheduled to host five three-game football nights.

Volleyball

Eighth- and ninth-grade used to be paired up on Monday and Tuesday nights for junior high volleyball. Now seventh- and eighthgrade will play together on Monday and Tuesday nights this fall.

Seventh-grade games will begin around 4:30 p.m., followed by the eighth-grade games around 6:30 p.m. All volleyball home games will be played in the Panther Activity Center.

Ninth-grade volleyball teams are linked up with the varsity schedule for Northwest Arkansas Conference and 6A-West Conference schools. Because Siloam Springs plays in the 5A-West, that means it’s ninth-grade team will be playing a NWAC game while its varsity could be playing another 5A-West team and therefore its schedules won’t match that of the varsity. Most ninth-grade game times will be 4:30 p.m. or 5 p.m.

Basketball

Seventh- and eighth-grade basketball teams will be paired up and play together on Monday and Thursday nights this winter, while the ninth-grade will play at a different location from the seventh- and eighth-grade.

Downing said a significant portion of seventhand eighth-grade basketball home games will be played on the middle school campus at Panther Arena.