Reclassification for area schools announced

Apr. 3—The IHSAA have come out with reclassifications for next year's fall and winter sports. Although the exact sectionals have not been determined, teams should know toward the end of the month on who will be playing where, so sectional assignments are speculation.

The enrollment figures — the total of boys and girls in grades 9-12 — were submitted by the schools to the Indiana Department of Education last fall and are used to determine the classifications in all team sports.

The four-class sports of baseball, basketball, softball and volleyball are being classified using a new 20-25-25-30 ratio that was approved by the IHSAA Executive Committee last June. That plan places the largest 20% of schools in Class 4A, the next 25% in Class 3A, the next 25% in 2A and the smallest 30% in Class 1A. Additionally, classifying the four-class sports will be based on the entire membership total and not only those schools participating in each sport effectively keeping sectional alignments similar across each sport.

Football (six classes) and soccer (three classes) are not affected and will continue as they have in previous years. Tournament Success Factor points have been totaled over the last two years and specific teams placed in their appropriate class in each sport.

The only area team that will be moving up in our area is Washington football, a team that will be in 4A and most likely find itself in a sectional with Jasper. However, Memorial moves down from 4A and Mater Dei will move up from 2A. Washington had 810 students will be the smallest 4A football school by student count. The top team in 3A is Jay County with 800 and they will be moving down from 4A.

The rest of Washington's teams should remain where they are, but will benefit from Jasper and Memorial moving up to 3A in girls' soccer.

North Daviess will move down from 3A to 1A in boys' basketball, while other Cougar teams in 2A (girls' basketball and volleyball) will be back in 1A.

Barr-Reeve will remain in 1A in everything except volleyball where they move from 3A back to 2A, as they remain a casualty of a former double success factor. They will most likely be taking the spot in the 2A volleyball sectional that North Daviess was in.

Washington Catholic, with 61 students, is the 399th out of the 403 current IHSAA schools and remains in Class A in all sports.