Proposed section realignment would move Sonora to Trans Valley League

After a nine-year run, Sonora High School’s time in the Mother Lode League could be coming to an end.

At its first meeting on Jan. 17 in Stockton, the 2024-28 Sac-joaquin Section Realignment Committee released a preliminary proposal for new leagues within the section to athletic administrators, families and media.

The proposal includes big changes to the MLL, most notably the transplant of dominant Sonora High to the small-school powerhouse Trans Valley League.

Along with Sonora, Argonaut High would depart from the MLL for the Division V Sierra Valley Conference to play alongside Bradshaw Christian, El Dorado, Galt, Liberty Ranch, Rosemont, Union Mine and fellow proposed new addition, Sacramento.

As for the MLL, three new arrivals will bolster the league’s ranks up to seven, as Linden will rejoin the league after its departure in 2018. Waterford, currently of the Southern Athletic League, and Riverbank, of the TVL, would also join the MLL.

While section realignment talks are often contentious, the proposed moves have been regarded as largely favorable among athletic directors and administrators from Tuolumne County schools, who say they left the first meeting unsurprised with the changes and hopeful for the future.

“I am kind of taking the approach of, ‘Put us where we belong, and we are going to compete. I am not afraid. Let’s go,’ ” Sonora High Athletic Director Josh Kroeze said of the proposed change. “I look at it as a challenge, and I think the more you challenge all of our sports, the better we are going to be. It’s exciting to me, and hopefully all of our coaches feel that way.”

The Wildcats will certainly be challenged, as the realignment committee has proposed to create a juggernaut in the TVL across multiple sports with the additions of Sonora, Ripon Christian and Orestimba to a league which already boasted a number of state and section champions last year.

“It was exactly what I expected, as far as us moving to the TVL,” Kroeze said. “When you look at the leagues competitively, we have really been dominating in the Mother Lode League, and I knew that they were going to get us out — I don’t think the Mother Lode League ever wanted us in.

“When you start looking at where else we would fit, both geographically and competitively, I don’t really think there is another

choice. That is where we fit.”

TVL would become a juggernaut

With the proposed changes, the TVL is set to become one of the strongest small-school football and volleyball leagues in the state.

Both Escalon and Hughson won state bowl games this season, while Ripon Christian won a section title. Sonora fell to Escalon in the Division V section championship game, rounding out a fearsome football lineup.

“Every single football team was a playoff team last year,” Kroeze said. “You have got two state champions, three section champions, a section runner-up (and) everyone else was either in the playoffs or won playoff games. It’s going to be a grinder for football. I look forward to it, because every game is going to be competitive.”

In volleyball, Ripon beat out Sonora in the Division IV section championship game, while Escalon won a Division III section title and Ripon Christian won a Division V section title.

“It might possibly be one of the best volleyball leagues in the state at that level,” Kroeze said.

Kroeze also noted that, despite the fact that Sonora will likely win fewer games than they do now in the MLL, they may have the ability to drop down to a lower division for the playoffs should they not win a league championship.

“In the Mother Lode League, we have been the No. 1 seed every year, so we are going to play at our division,” he said. “Look what has happened to the other teams in our league, like Amador and Argonaut — they dropped down in the playoffs and have taken home some state championships and section titles. That could happen to us in the TVL.”

The only complication for Sonora in the new proposal will be travel, according to Kroeze.

While in the MLL, Sonora only had to travel for two games, to Amador and Argonaut in Amador County. Now, even their closest game would be about that far.

“Our closest game is going to be Escalon, which is going to be over an hour in a bus,” Kroeze said. “Orestimba is an hour and forty minutes away in a car — that’s a two-hour plus bus ride.”

While Sonora used to encourage families to contribute a transportation fee, they discontinued the practice altogether years ago. Now, the increased travel will put a strain on the school district, which will have to foot the bill, Kroeze said.

“It’s going to be a big hit financially, and transportation is tricky,” Kroeze said. “We are going to have to get creative with how we come up with money, because it’s going to be expensive to get all these kids to their sports.”

Though the Wildcats’ future is still in such a competitive league could be hazy, Kroeze said he and his coaches are prepared to adapt to a new level of competition, should the proposal be finalized.

“There are a lot of things that can happen, and I think overall, we are going to be better. We have to be better,” Kroeze said. “You play in a more competitive league, you are going to get better.”

MLL would find parity

With the departure of Sonora, who won a total of 56 league titles across all sports during their eight-and-a-half year tenure as a MLL school, the league looks to be entering a period of relative parity with the additions of Linden, Waterford and Riverbank — none of which will obviously dominate across multiple sports.

“I feel like Summerville was pleased with it,” Summerville High Athletic Director Amy Peterson said of the proposal. “We were glad at the teams that were coming in and the teams that were going out.”

Peterson, who attended the Jan. 17 meeting alongside Summerville Principal Brett Christopher and head football coach Sean Leveroos, said one of the things the Tuolumne-based school is most excited about is that they will be classified as a Division VI program.

“We will be Division VI, solidly, and kids in and out are not going to affect our playoff standings like they are right now,” Peterson said. “We have those jumps depending on the amount of kids that we get, and of course, we have like 240-something Connections (Academy) kids and only a handful of them play sports, so really we are working from numbers in the 400s.”

With the potential return of Linden, which found success in the MLL before its departure in 2018, Peterson said Summerville looks forward to the opportunity to take more cracks at its former league foe.

“For us, we like the way they have it laid out,” she said. “We like that it is going to be a stable Division VI and all the teams in there are going to be competitive. I think Linden will be the new Sonora, because they are really competitive, which we love… Those will be good games to watch.”

Looking forward

Despite the relative lack of pushback to the proposal from schools within the section, both Peterson and Kroeze alluded to some discord behind the scenes from schools involved with the proposed changes in the realignment, and that things are not yet set in stone.

“We walked out of there happy, but there are some other things that are being proposed right now that we are not going to vote for,” Peterson said.

One of those proposals could be coming from Ripon Christian, the ultra-successful Christian school which has a high school enrollment of only 191, according to U.S. News and World Report.

In response to the release of the preliminary realignment proposal, Ripon Christian head football coach Phil Grams tweeted in response to another user voicing concerns about Ripon Christian’s new home in the TVL.

“In football, roster size matters,” Grams stated in the tweet. “We will always be a 20-25 man roster. Ripon Christian is a special place and our enrollment will always be around 250. There is warranted (concern) about 20 guys (versus) 45 every week as it will be about a battle of attrition rather than football.”

The Sac-joaquin Section has three more public meetings scheduled for Feb. 7, Feb. 28, Mar. 7 and a possible final meeting Mar. 21, and Kroeze said he believes more changes will take place before the proposal is forwarded to the Board of Managers for approval in April.

However, it is unclear whether any tangible changes will be made to the existing proposal for the MLL and TVL. Should plans continue as they currently stand, the existing structure of prep sports in the Mother Lode region will shift dramatically.