Week 9 of the high school football season in Southwest Washington will be one for the ages.
On Friday night, there are three games between rivals with unbeaten league records to decide league titles.
Camas plays Skyview at Kiggins Bowl for the 4A Greater St. Helens League championship.
Ridgefield plays at Woodland for the 2A Greater St. Helens League title.
And Seton Catholic plays at La Center for the 1A Trico League crown.
All of those teams have already secured berths to next week’s Week 10 playoffs. But what about the other teams?
Remember, this season every classification will play a statewide Week 10 district playoff. And those Week 10 matchups will be announced around noon Sunday.
So let’s take a look at what other teams will be playing for in Week 9.
1A Trico League
A month ago, we were told the Trico League would receive four berths to the Week 10 playoffs, which made Friday’s Castle Rock-King’s Way Christian a crucial game.
But then we learned last week the Trico is receiving five berths to Week 10, and those five berths will go to Seton Catholic (8-0), La Center (8-0), Kalama (6-2), King’s Way Christian (5-3) and Castle Rock (5-3).
With Kalama playing at Castle Rock on Friday, there is a chance that Castle Rock, Kalama and King’s Way Christian can tie for third place in the league at 4-3, if Castle Rock knocks off Kalama.
In past years, that would call for a tiebreaker because there would be a significant difference in being the league’s No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5 seeds to the playoffs.
But this year, Week 10 pairings will be determined by a statewide committee, so no tiebreaker will be needed.
Kalama would rather avoid that three-way tie. A win for the Chinooks on Friday likely will give Kalama a home playoff game next week with a 7-2 mark. But a loss makes things murkier.
2A GSHL
Ridgefield (8-0), Woodland (6-2) and Washougal (5-3) have clinched Week 10 berths.
A fourth 2A GSHL team will receive an automatic berth to Week 10, while the fifth-place team will have to meet Aberdeen, the 2A Evergreen Conference No. 3, in a Nov. 5 play-in game at Aberdeen.
Because of that Tuesday play-in game — and the possibility of a three-way tie — the Mark Morris-R.A. Long game will be played on Thursday, instead of Friday.
If Mark Morris wins that game, the Monarchs will receive the fourth automatic berth into the Week 10 playoffs, and Columbia River will be the 2A GSHL’s No. 5 team — win or lose against Hudson’s Bay on Thursday.
But if R.A. Long wins, things get trickier.
If River falls to Bay, R.A. Long gets the No. 4 berth with a win over Mark Morris and the Monarchs would be the No. 5 team.
But if River beats Bay and R.A. Long wins, then Mark Morris, R.A. Long and River would be tied at 3-4. That would require a three-team Kansas Plan tiebreaker on Saturday afternoon at Woodland.
That tiebreaker would determine which team would go directly to the Week 10 playoffs, which team advances to the play-in game and which team would be out.
3A GSHL
The 3A GSHL receives two berths to the Week 10 playoffs this season, then get three berths in 2025.
This year’s two berths have been claimed by Evergreen (7-1) and Kelso (6-2). This week, the Plainsmen and Hilanders are playing to make their season résumés look more impressive to the Week 10 seeding committee.
4A GSHL
Camas (8-0) and Skyview (6-2) have already clinched the league’s only two berths to the Week 10 playoffs.
