This is no longer your father’s Intercounty League. Heck, it’s not even your older brother’s.
The high school football landscape will undergo a drastic overhaul beginning this fall thanks to a vote during the Pioneer Valley Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s annual meeting Thursday at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley.
The athletic directors and principals in the PVIAC voted to include the Berkshire schools (District G) in football on a one-year-only trial basis. The move was made after new divisional alignments were created for the upcoming season, when there will be eight postseason divisions. Greenfield athletic director Mike Kuchieski, the man behind the new alignments, said he was hoping to create league competition while also putting teams together in like divisions as much as possible.
“The new divisional alignments forced us to do this,” he said.
Even though the state will have eight divisions this fall, the western Massachusetts teams will fall into just four. Some have suggested that the alignments are a bit unbalanced, but the hope is that with competitive leagues, every team will have a good postseason probabilities.
“Those alignments are what they are,” Kuchieski said. “If we have leagues that can be competitive, it’s going to give every team the opportunity to make the playoffs, and there should be good competition in the leagues. It was about getting camaraderie and keeping the leagues, and still being able to make them competitive.”
The Intercounty League is undergoing the most dramatic transition, as it will be split into three divisions, North, South and West. The IL North is the only six-team division of the three and will feature Athol, Mahar, Frontier, Turners Falls, Greenfield and Franklin Tech, which is one of three teams moving up from the former Tri-County League. The IL South will feature Belchertown, Easthampton, Ludlow, Monument Mountain and Amherst, which is moving down from the former Suburban. The IL West will feature Mt. Greylock, Drury, Lee, Mohawk and McCann Tech.
The Tri-County League is now home to Pioneer, Palmer, Pathfinder, Ware and Smith Voke, plus Dean Tech if the Hawks can field a team. If Dean Tech fails to form a team, it could create some scheduling issues for the five remaining teams.
As for the other three leagues: The AA Conference will contain Central, Holyoke, Chicopee Comp., Minnechaug, Agawam and Longmeadow. The Suburban League will also be split into two divisions this fall. The SL North will include Chicopee, Pittsfield, Taconic, South Hadley, Wahconah and Hoosac Valley, while the SL South will contain Commerce, Westfield, West Springfield, Putnam, East Longmeadow and Northampton.
The three IL leagues will play every other team within their division once, and will then crossover with one team from each of the other two leagues. What all of this means is that both the Greenfield-Turners Falls and Athol-Mahar rivalries will not be limited to Thanksgiving-only any more. Both of those games will remain on Thanksgiving, but the teams will also play an additional regular-season game.
“I’m not a big proponent of that, but to be able to keep a true statewide playoff system and make it as healthy as possible, we are willing to give it a try,” Kuchieski said. “It will be weird going over to Turners Falls when it’s warm outside, but it will be fun to go over there an extra time. They are a good football town.”
The entire thing will be re-evaluated next spring, and at that time the PVIAC will have a decision to make. Due to the current constitution, teams are not allowed to enter the PVIAC in just one sport. It’s all or nothing, which is why McCann Tech is a full member of the PVIAC. If the football teams from the Berkshires want to remain in football, the PVIAC constitution will have to be re-written, or schools will have to merge all their sports, which is unlikely to happen, partly due to travel issues.
The last thing to deal with, according to Kuchieski, is tweaking the Walker System.
“We are going to have to rank the leagues and strength in order to make the Walker System work,” he said.
It is also still unclear whether league champions will get automatic postseason bids, although that is not likely. There are also questions as to how scheduled games against league opponents will be weighted when playing teams in opposing divisions, such as when Greenfield (a Division IV team) takes on Turners Falls or Franklin Tech (Division IVA teams).
“We’ll see. It’s a one-year trial,” Kuchieski concluded. “I think everybody is pretty much on board and with open minds. We’ll try to make this work. If it needs some tweaking after this year, then it needs tweaking.”