West Shamokin

[animus2001]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsbu ... 62635.html

West Shamokin is considering ending their co-op with Elderton to get their boys enrollment down to class A level. There was only one boy playing on the W Shamokin team from Elderton. I think that since they are the same school district just tell any future Elderton football players they have to attend West Shamokin High School, then Elderton's enrollment won't be counted. Or maybe Elderton can co-op with Kittanning or Ford City where a small bump in enrollment won't change their classification. Maybe the best thing for them to do is just tell the basketball coach "TOO BAD, YOU'RE GOING TO THE HERITAGE" and take steps to join the Heritage Conference again.

What a cluster the Eastern could be, assuming no one moves up. You have Imani playing its first year and possibly W. Shamokin joining. I guess OLSH and ??? could move somewhere to other conferences. But we also got possibly Laurel and Riverside dropping to A. I think A could end up with 5 conferences next year.

[richaboli]

Word is out that West Shamokin will not play an independent schedule next year, nor will they continue to coop with Elderton, who next year will be cooping with Ford City in football. They are staying in the WPIAL and hope their 169 boys enrollment figure will put them in class A. Currently 184 is the boys class A ceiling but that figure is predicted to drop and won't be known until the middle of next month, when the new PIAA enrollments and classification ceilings are determined by the PIAA then announced.

[costanza]

what's hard to believe is that their boys enrollment went from 218 to 169 in a two year period. that is quite a drop.

[animus2001]

A big kick in the nads would be if the ceiling drops and they are 2A regardless.

Other "Bubble" schools that could move to 2A are Brentwood 180+/- 5 Fort Cherry 175 +/-5 and Avonworth 170 +/-. I got those figures from www.high-schools.com. Note that the numbers they got on the page are from last years numbers so I had to do some work, hence the +/- part. I'd think the number could drop as low as 176ish. I see Laurel dropping with relative ease.

[VAD1]

I was just reading over this post... why in the heck does the Basketball coach at West Shamokin have a say in any of this? Does WS not have an Athletic Director? I don't care about the coach's resume, even if he's won multiple state titles. You hire an AD to make decisions which affect the athletic program, not a coach.

[richaboli]

Could there be two football teams in the hall ways at West Shamokin High School next season? Yes, it does sound ridiculous, but so are other matters in this non-stabile school district of protesters.
If you remember from previous news, the school board decided to stop the past practice of sending the Elderton football players to West Shamokin to play for the Wolves and decided instead to transport them to Ford City High School to play for the Sabers. That transportation decision was decided upon in order to get West Shamokin's football enrollment figure down so that they could drop to a class A conference.
But something new happened after that.
The Armstrong School District intends to close Elderton High School and send ALL those students to West Shamokin. Now common sense would dictate that the players who played for Elderton would naturally play for West Shamokin, but that breaks their promise to the WPIAL. Remember, Elderton players are to play for Ford City. Thus(?), a few Sabers football players and all of the West Shamokin Wolves football players could be in the same hall ways together!!!!!!!Yikes!

New news:
Last week there was a huge protest of the board's intentions to close Elderton.
Stay tuned to see if the board backs down again, which they usually do about everything.

[richaboli]

Wednesday evening the Armstrong School Board decided to stick to their guns. They decided to close Elderton HS and send those students to West Shamokin. West Shamokin has already been assigned to a WPIAL class B football conference for the next two seasons. After that, unless they have a big enrollment decrease, it looks like they'll be back in a WPIAL class AA conference where they don't want to be. Maybe they'll take another look at a District 5/6 athletic conference again.

[konjo78]

If they were smart they would make a move to Heritage conference. District 6 is tough but is a much easier path than the WPIAL. Plus Heritage does seem to be on a little up swing in high school football.

[richaboli]

Is Ligonier Valley's time in the Heritage coming to an end?
We'll see if they dominate this year or next. If they do, they'll probably be urged to get out. They'll probably want to move to the mostly AA Laurel Highlands Athletic conference to replace Bishop Carrol whose time is said to near the end. Of course Chestnut Ridge wants in the Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference too.
West Shamokin can replace Ligonier Valley in the Heritage. Then later will come Leechburg.
Ligonier Valley, Saltsburg, and Blairsville were previously in District 7 (the WPIAL).
And for history's sake, almost all the Westmoreland County and Fayette County teams were looking into joining District 5/6 back in the 70's when the Westmoreland County schools didn't like how the WPIAL leadership was treating them. Finally, they decided to stay in the WPIAL when the WPIAL caved in to their demands. But something to keep in mind is that many years Westmoreland County teams used to come out on top in the WPIAL playoffs. Today, with the exception of Jeannette and Greensburg Central Catholic, making it to the WPIAL finals just doesn't happen to Westmoreland County teams. In fact, Westmoreland/Fayette County teams almost always get massacred in the WPIAL playoffs. Those Westmoreland/Fayette rural boys have too hard of time to keep up with the suburbs of Pittsburgh boys.