Lee drop to Class 4A biggest local UIL change

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[size=12pt]Lee drop to Class 4A biggest local UIL change [/size]

By Dave Rogers
The Baytown Sun
Published February 2, 2010


HOUSTON — The University Interscholastic League presented Baytown area teams a pleasant surprise Monday in its biennial realignment of conferences and districts.

Other than the expected drop from Class 5A to 4A for Baytown Lee, there will be hardly any change in the makeup of local districts for the 2010-2012 school years, which go into effect in the fall.

In fact, the biggest development was the one most anticipated with Lee and Sterling now playing in different classifications and districts.

[b][size=12pt]That means The Game, the crosstown rivalry Lee-Sterling matchup, will take place as a non-district contest and for the next two years, it’s tentatively scheduled as the season opener for area high school football.[/size][/b]

(By UIL edict, no schedules are official until Feb. 19.)

Lee was moved into District 19-4A with Baytown’s other Class 4A school, Goose Creek Memorial, and six of the other seven members of 19-4A from the past two seasons.

Barbers Hill, Crosby, Dayton, C.E. King, Galena Park and North Forest return to 19-4A. The only change besides the inclusion of Lee is the move of Kingwood Park to District 18-4A.

“This is exactly what I was hoping for,” Lee principal Bruce Davis said after the realignment packets were open and digested at the Region IV Education Service Center in Northwest Houston. “I think we’ll develop some good rivalries in this district.

“I’m real pleased.”

District 21-5A replaced Lee with the addition of La Porte, keeping it a six-team district. The other five teams from the past two years remain the same: Sterling, Beaumont West Brook, Port Arthur Memorial, North Shore and Channelview.

“It was nice there were no changes,” Sterling principal Don Beck said. “It was definitely nice we didn’t have to switch around to a new district and scramble for games.”

Lee was one of seven Region III teams to drop from 5A to 4A, so there were some big changes for several Greater Houston districts, with Humble High joining Northbrook, Spring Woods and Stratford from the Spring Branch district, Galveston Ball and New Caney in dropping to 4A.

Ball moves into District 24-4A, which surprisingly still includes La Marque, which had been expected to drop to 3A. La Marque turned in an enrollment of 999 to the UIL; 990 was the cutoff for Class 4A.

The Cy-Fair district, 10 schools strong, moves back to Region III from Region II while Kingwood and Humble move into District 14-5A in Region II with the Conroe schools and Lufkin.

The Humble school district has for years hosted the Region III track meet for Classes A through 5A.

“We won’t host it anymore,” Troy Kite, Humble’s athletic director, said. “We don’t have any kids in it.”

For football only, the UIL divided Classes 2A and A into two 16-district divisions, Division 1 and Division 2, based on enrollment.

While four teams from each district qualify for the playoffs in all 5A and 4A sports and three teams from each district qualify for the playoffs in all 2A and 3A sports, now only two schools will qualify for the playoffs in each 2A and 1A district, according to playoff brackets furnished in the UIL realignment packet.

Anahuac landed in District 10-2A for football, with five of the six teams it currently shares 23-2A – Buna, Hardin, Kountze, Warren, East Chambers – along with Newton and Woodville.

For all other sports, Anahuac will compete in District 24-2A with all the current 23-2A teams, Buna, Hardin, Deweyville, Hardin, Kountze, Warren and East Chambers.