It’s been a busy December, so let’s play some catch up…

Fall Athletics, In Review

Of the local MWL/SWC schools, Sheldon advanced farthest into their respective football postseason, losing in the 6A title game to Lake Oswego 47-14. It was Sheldon’s fifth trip to the state championship since 2001; they had won titles in 2002, 2007, and 2009, but Lake O proved to be too much this time around. It was hard not to like the setup: these were two of Oregon’s biggest football factories and the two undisputed most talented teams in the state. Things just didn’t fall in Sheldon’s favor, and they just couldn’t stop RB Steven Long, the 6A Offensive Player of the Year.

Thurston beat defending 6A champion Aloha in the first round of the 6A playoffs 46-27, behind 392 rushing yards by RB Trevor Westover. It was a big win for Thurston, who has dipped under the 6A enrollment cutoff into 5A territory. The Colts may be among the smallest 6A schools but they continue to strive for excellence in their football program, and knocking off the defending champs helped provide a boost of legitimacy. The Colts finished in the top half of the SWC for the second straight year. They lost to Central Catholic in the round of 16.

South Eugene wrapped up an 0-10 campaign by losing 53-34 @ Centennial in the 6A play-in round. It was a tough go of things for the Axemen, who lost two difference-making underclassmen in the offseason and were left with a thin roster to battle week in and week out in the SWC, perhaps the toughest league in the state of Oregon.

In 5A, Marist was again the cream of the crop in the MWL, again running roughshod through the league and not suffering its first defeat until they got deep into the playoffs. Last year the Spartans were 12-0 before losing to Sherwood in the state championship, this year they ran their record out to 11-0 before falling to eventual champion Mountain View in the semifinals.

Ashland, a football-only member of the MWL, won shootouts over Crescent Valley and Silverton to advance to the quarterfinals before dropping a low scoring game to Sherwood, the eventual 5A runner-up. Churchill, Willamette, Marshfield, Eagle Point (another football-only member), and Springfield all failed to get out of the play-in round. North Eugene missed the postseason completely.

But football isn’t the only sport played in the fall.

Volleyball had one of the more confusing championships I’ve ever come across in all my years of following high school athletics. This year, the MWL has adopted multiple champions in all sports where the 6A/5A hybrid is in effect: a hybrid champion, a 5A champion, and a 6A champion, as determined by the 6A’s schools body of work both against one another in-league, and their work in their separate, 6A-only Special District 1 league. Since the MWL 6A schools are playing extra league games against their Special District 1 rivals, the MWL added an extra round of 5A games, where the 5A schools all played one another an additional time. Here’s how the volleyball hybrid standings looked this past fall:

Churchill (7-1)

Marshfield (7-1)

Marist (6-2)

Thurston (5-3)

Sheldon (4-4)

Willamette (4-4)

South Eugene (2-6)

North Eugene (1-7)

Springfield (0-8)

So, Churchill and Marshfield are your 2011 hybrid MWL champions. Here’s how the 5A-only standings looked:

Marshfield (9-1)

Churchill (8-2)

Willamette (6-4)

Marist (5-5)

North Eugene (2-8)

Springfield (0-10)

So, Marshfield was the MWL 5A champion, and got the MWL’s #1 seed at state. And then there’s the 6A standings:

Sheldon (6-1)

Redmond (5-2)

South Eugene (4-3)

Thurston (3-4)

Lincoln (2-5)

Grant (1-6)

So, Sheldon was your 6A league champion: even though Thurston finished ahead of Sheldon in the MWL hybrid standings.

Aren’t reclassifications and hybrid leagues fun?

In 6A, Sheldon and Thurston both won first round games at state (against South Medford and Tigard, respectively) but both failed to advanced past the round of 16 and into the state tournament up in Portland.

In 5A, both Churchill and Marshfield reached the quarterfinals. Churchill beat Liberty, advancing to the semifinals, where they lost to eventual champion Summit in three sets; they lost to Sherwood in a 3^rd/5^th place consolation, finishing in 5^th place overall. Marshfield lost their quarterfinal game to Sherwood but won the consolation bracket, finishing 4^th place overall.

Boys soccer: South Eugene was the MWL hybrid/6A champion, Willamette the 5A champion. South Eugene lost to Clackamas 1-0 in the 2^nd round. Churchill went farther than any other 5A school, losing 3-2 to eventual champion Woodburn in the quarterfinals.

Girls soccer: Thurston was MWL hybrid/6A champion, Willamette the 5A champion. Thurston lost 3-2 to Westview in the quarterfinals. Willamette reached the 5A semifinals, losing 2-0 to eventual champion Sherwood.

The South Eugene boys and girls cross country teams both won state at the 6A level. Jesuit’s girls cross country program won state every year from 2002-2010; the South girls ended a dynasty with their performance in 2011. The Marshfield boys finished 9^th in 5A, the Marist girls finished 3^rd.

Perhaps the biggest news of the fall came late, when longtime mainstay Marshfield announced it was pulling out of the MWL hybrid. The Pirates will continue to compete in the 5A MWL, but they will no longer be scheduling 6A games. The reason? Declining enrollment. Marshfield’s enrollment currently sits at 873, just above the 870 4A/5A threshold. By 2014, projections point to an enrollment closer to 800. Marshfield’s petition to fall down to 4A was thus denied for the 2012-13 and 2013-14 seasons, but word is that they are banking on dropping down for the 2014 block and joining the 4A Far West League.

Enrollment blues aren’t just contained to the coast. Thurston and South Eugene both petitioned to drop down from 6A to 5A, citing declining enrollment. Thurston’s enrollment is 1432, below the 1480 5A/6A threshold, but their request was denied by the OSAA. Similarly, South Eugene’s enrollment is down to 1454, also below the threshold, but their request was also denied. The reason? Ambigious, but here’s thinking the OSAA didn’t want to deal with the problem of having eight 5A schools and one 6A school (Sheldon) in the MWL hybrid. Sounds like a logistical problem, so Thurston and South were kept at 6A.

Take note, I don’t blame the OSAA for any wrong doing here. It’s fairly well known that changes in-between their four-year blocks are made few and far between, and Marshfield, Thurston, and South Eugene’s circumstances aren’t so dire that changes needed to be made immediately. Thurston projects their enrollment to be at 1280 within four years. If those numbers pan out, the OSAA will be forced to move Thurston back to 5A when they next look at things in 2014.

The wildcard? Open enrollment. I’ve heard projections leaning decidedly in the opposite direction regarding Thurston, and that with state-mandated open enrollment officials project Thurston’s enrollment to skyrocket towards the 1700-1800 range in the next few years. Those numbers would obviously keep Thurston at 6A. It will be interesting to see if some of these projections ring true, and how they effect Eugene’s 4J district.

Hoops

The 2011-12 basketball season is just getting underway. Not a ton to report on, yet, but early returns seem to indicate that the MWL may be as deep as it has been in a number of years.

Sheldon was my preseason pick to take the league (to me, there is one league; I’ll let the OSAA break things down into hybrid champions, 5A champions, etc., etc.). The Irish have started 3-4, but remember that their football team played into December, and all of Sheldon’s playmakers on the hardcourt (Dillon Miller, Dale Baker, Connor Strahm) are also football players. Everyone’s back now, and I expect Sheldon to return to form.

Beyond Sheldon, the power in the MWL seems to reside in the 5A ranks. Churchill (7-1), Marshfield (6-2), and North Eugene (4-4) all look like legitimate MWL contenders, and Marist (5-3) doesn’t seem to be far behind. Churchill’s only loss is at Wilsonville, ranked #3 in 5A. The Lancers beat #1 Corvallis in their own gym, by far the MWL’s best individual win, and #6 West Albany. Marshfield also lost to #3 Wilsonville (and Eagle Point, in a tournament) but have held serve elsewhere, including a home win over Sheldon, a huge game where Sheldon’s football players weren’t all the way back but it counts all the same in the league standings. Three of North Eugene’s four losses have come to top ten teams; they also have a win over 6A Roseburg, and cold clocked Thurston on the road. Marist’s three losses are to two 6A schools, and at North Eugene. 

Sheldon and the top 4 5A schools all look legit to me; don’t ask me to rank them. It’s way too early, and they all look more than capable of doing a lot of damage.

Thurston has started 2-5, playing 6 of their first 7 games against 6A schools. Kind of hard to tell how that will translate into MWL play, although as mentioned above, North came into Colt Coliseum and purple nurpled Thurston into submission a couple weeks ago. Two of Thurston’s Special District 1 rivals are in the 6A top 10, they’ve already lost to another (Redmond), and then there’s Sheldon to deal with, so the Colt’s W/L record may not end up being strong, but there’s still talent here. The Colts are getting good wing play from junior Caleb Wilson and sophomore Carson Cook, and post Cameron Cook scored 20 points in a win over 6A West Salem down in a tournament in Medford. The Colts may end up finishing 5^th or 6^th place in the MWL, but they’re not a bad team.

Will-Hi has started 4-5 but they have enough scorers to play spoiler along the way, South Eugene started 0-6 before finally getting their first win against a school from California. Tough times for the Axemen: they’ve been roughed up by their 6A-heavy non-league schedule, and Marshfield and Churchill have both blown them out of the water.

Springfield also started 0-6 before securing their first win. The Millers have a trio of underclassmen guards that all look pretty talented to me, but they lack size down low. Alec Cook, a freshman, started in a game I saw them play against Thurston in front of the Miller Mob. Reminded me of a smaller BJ Knot, another kid who started for Springfield as a freshman a number of years ago and helped lead the Millers to the MWL title as a senior in 2003. Great handles for such a young player. Lot of inter-city intrigue in that game overall: Cook is the cousin of Thurston starters Cameron and Carson Cook, Caleb Wilson played for Springfield as a freshman before transferring to Thurston before last season, Dylan Piquette is the nephew of Thurston head coach Doug Piquette but starts at the point for Springfield, Doug Piquette may coach for Thurston now but back in the day he was an all-league guard for Springfield – and Eric Orton, now the head coach at Springfield, played under Piquette at Thurston in the early 2000s. And yes, the game lived up to all that off-the-court madness: Thurston survived 56-53, as Piquette missed a long distance trey at the buzzer.

Your standings, if you were interested:

Marshfield 2-0

North 2-0

Churchill 1-0

Sheldon 1-1

Thurston 1-1

Willamette 1-1

Marist 0-1

Springfield 0-2

South Eugene 0-2

Lots of basketball to play, and it looks like a fun season ahead.