District 1C, 3C to combine for volleyball in 2010-11

The Montana High School Association Executive Board moved to combine Districts 3C and 1C for the 2010-11 volleyball season in its regularly scheduled meeting on Nov. 23.

The move comes as an answer to the declining enrollment in the Eastern C Division. Both Brockton and Lustre Christian were unable to field teams this season and Whitewater left previously to co-op with Malta, leaving the remaining schools in District 3C to scramble to fill games on the schedule. Many teams resorted to playing junior varsity squads in higher divisions.

The reorganized conference will be known as District 1C, comprising of all the schools in the two districts. District 2C will remain the same but will add Northern Cheyenne Tribal to the conference, moving the Eagles from a freelance school to a definite conference.

“It should be easier (to schedule games),” Saco athletics director Barry Malone said. “We had to scramble to find matches because we were down to four teams.”

The new conference officially is listed with 13 teams, though in reality only about 10 will realistically field teams. The only downfall to the merger, Malone said, is that some schools will be forced to travel longer distances.

“We need to get the games,” Malone said. “We'd be willing to play some of the teams in that other conference to make up for games we weren't able to get.”

Scobey/Opheim, which is situated right near the border of the two districts, isn't so much effected by the travel but will enjoy playing more varsity games, Scobey athletics director Dionne Nieskens said.

The merger brings obvious upside in that 3C teams can now schedule other Class C teams much easier and won't need to resort to playing JV teams as much.

“It was nice of the Class B schools to let us play their JV squads,” Saco/Hinsdale head coach Heidi McColly said. “But, it really wasn't an equal level of competition (every time). Having more equal level of competition should help us.”

The 3C teams will now get high end competition nearly every week. Top 1C teams, such as Fairfield, Culbertson and Savage should force teams like Saco/Hinsdale and Scobey/Opheim into more exciting matches and will give them more of a push than JV squads filled with freshmen and sophomores.

“We've seen a lot of those teams at the divisional level,” McColly said. “If we hadn't made it to divisionals it would be a shocker for next year. We kind of know what we'll see but at the same time it will improve us.”

The merger will certainly put more pressure on every school during the district playoffs and should get the girls to play their best volleyball, McColly said.

“If we want to do well, we're going to have to step up our ability and our skills,” McColly said. “And we could use the improvement.”
Final action will be taken on the motion at the Executive Board's January meeting.