A year ago, Camas cruised to a league football title and the top seed from the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League while three other teams tied for second and had to play in a tiebreaker to determine the two remaining playoff berths.
This fall, it appears the battles for playoff position will be even more intense.
With the Class 4A Greater St. Helens League getting smaller, so, too, is the number of football teams that will qualify for the postseason.
Only two of the five teams in the 4A GSHL will make it to the state qualifying round playoffs in the next two school years, Cale Piland, athletic director for Evergreen Public Schools, confirmed Wednesday.
The league, which had seven teams in recent years, is accustomed to having three teams make the playoffs. In fact, all three of the GSHL teams won those Week 10 playoff games to reach the state tournament the past three seasons.
That cannot happen in 2016 and 2017.
“There’s going to be some pretty good teams that don’t get in … that’s for sure,” Piland said.
For football, the new-look 4A GSHL — Battle Ground, Camas, Heritage, Skyview and Union — has only one allocation to the WIAA’s state playoffs.
The league is giving up its one sure thing in order to try to get two teams to state, but those two teams must win Week 10 playoff games to get there.
Officials from the 4A and 3A GSHLs were in negotiations with Tri-Cities and Spokane schools in an effort to make what was termed a “super regional.” That would have given the 4A GSHL three teams to Week 10.
That did not work out, though, so instead the Week 10 qualifying round features an agreement with District 4 (Southwest Washington) along with Districts 1, 2, 3 and 4 — which makes up all of western Washington.
The six-team 3A GSHL — Evergreen, Fort Vancouver, Hudson’s Bay, Kelso, Mountain View, and Prairie — will get three teams to Week 10 playoff football games.
The plan for football is official, but there remains work to be done for the playoff plans in the other sports.
District 4 and District 3 likely will have 16-team bi-district tournaments in most sports, Piland said. While nothing is set in stone just yet, it appears:
• The 4A GSHL’s champions will go directly into the bi-district tournaments, while the second- and third-place teams might have to win pigtail games in order to advance, Piland said.
• The 3A GSHL will get four of the 16 entries into the bi-district tournaments.
