Changes might lead to fun

Sometimes it’s too easy to look toward the future.

With spring sports underway, excitement is already building for the fall season.

Wednesday, the IHSAA released its new classifications for the next two school years.

For four Jay County High School and three South Adams teams, change is coming.

Perhaps the most exciting change is for the JCHS girls basketball team, which is moving down to Class 3A.

In five of the last six seasons, the Patriots were knocked out of the sectional tournament by the Homestead Spartans, who were Class 4A state champions this year and runners-up in 2015.

It had to be frustrating for then-coach Chris Krieg and current coach Kirk Comer to have the season end at the hands of the same team seemingly every season.

But for the next two years, that won’t be the case. The Patriots don’t have to play Homestead during the postseason.

For the Jay County boys and girls soccer teams, the sectional field may not change much. Beginning with the 2017-18 school year, soccer will be divided into three classes instead of two. With the realignment, both JCHS teams fell into Class 2A. Yorktown, which has hosted the sectional tournament each of the last five seasons, and fellow sectional rival Delta are also Class 2A schools. Muncie Central — it hosted the tournament in 2011 — was moved up to Class 3A.

Sectional alignments for the next year won’t be announced until May. Jay County could remain grouped with Delta and Yorktown with another school to be added to the mix. Blackford could be added, along with Hamilton Heights or Tipton. Or the IHSAA could choose to make the Patriots go north, to play with any combination of Bellmont, Norwell, Heritage or Leo.

In speaking with local coaches, no matter how the sectionals are aligned, the possibility of having new sectional rivals is a reason to be excited.

“I am thrilled at the chance to maybe play a different sectional, to see different teams (and) build new rivalries,” said JCHS girls soccer coach Giles Laux, whose team won back-to-back sectionals in 2013 and 2014 before falling to Yorktown in each of the last two seasons. “If we stay in the Yorktown area, great. We’re not afraid to play anyone and we look forward to who we get set up to play.

“It’s going to be business as usual.”

Should the Jay County’s girls team get through sectional, its regional will be much different. It won’t have the powerhouses like Fishers, Carmel or McCutcheon in its regional any longer, since all three are now Class 3A schools.

“In the back of our minds it’s a chance at more success,” Laux said.

Jay County’s volleyball team is dropping back to Class 3A as well. It had not won a sectional title as a Class 4A school. Like the girls basketball team, the Patriot spikers get to avoid Homestead, Muncie Central and Concordia Lutheran, the latter of which chose to stay Class 4A.

Again, depending on which way the IHSAA wants the Patriots to go, potential sectional opponents are tough to predict. They could be grouped with schools to the southwest such as Muncie Burris, Delta, Blackford, Hamilton Heights, Guerin Catholic, Mississinewa, New Castle and Wapahani, last year’s Class 2A state champion. Another option has Jay County going north with New Haven, Leo, Norwell, Bellmont, Heritage, Bishop Luers and Garrett.

The last volleyball sectional title came in 2002 at Bellmont, when the Patriots were grouped with the host Squaws, Norwell, Peru, Maconaquah and Blackford.

South Adams’ football team is dropping back down to Class A after spending the last two seasons in Class 2A. The Starfires had losing records during the 2013 and 2014 regular seasons, but caught fire in the postseason to win back-to-back sectional championships, including a regional title in 2014. Last season, South Adams upset Class 2A No. 1 Woodlan in the sectional semifinal on its way to a Class 2A title.

Like many other local teams, coach Grant Moser and his Starfire football squad is waiting to find out which schools will be in its sectional. And like Laux’s team, the mindset won’t change no matter who is on the other sideline.

“The expectation is we are going to win sectional and that doesn’t matter who is in our sectional,” Moser said. “That is the expectation we have to have every year. That is what we want the program to be about.”

Regardless of how things shake out next month, excitement levels should be high. Seven local teams will have a new look to their sectional rivals for the next two years.

It has the makings to be a thrilling fall sports season.

But let’s first focus on spring.