http://www.insidenova.com/sports/lo...cle_14c9fbc4-1c18-11e5-b6d7-ff1abd4a0868.html
Although travel was the chief reason the Cardinal and Commonwealth districts requested to play non-district football teams, the revised schedule also allows Conferences 4 and 15 to determine regular-season champions on the field instead of awarding a title based on power points.
The two conferences had no other choice during the last scheduling cycle since they both featured Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania schools who did not all play each other. There was no room for out of district play among the four Prince William schools (Hylton, Gar-Field, Woodbridge and Forest Park) in Conference 4 and the two Prince William schools (Potomac and Freedom) in Conference 15.
With the new schedules, some Prince William County schools still found ways to play other county opponents not on their regular-season schedule.
Gar-Field, for example, will scrimmage Osbourn Park and Stonewall Jackson, while Osbourn Park will scrimmage Woodbridge.
Gar-Field activities director Mike Payne also suggested the Cardinal District schools rotate their schedules for the next two-year cycle to allow them to play local teams they did not play in 2014 and 2015.
Of course, this will all depend on how the ever-shifting alignment looks in the future.
Because of the location, the new high school off Route 234 near Hoadly Road, scheduled to open in the fall of 2016, is a logical fit to join Conference 8 members Battlefield, Osbourn Park, Stonewall Jackson, Patriot and Osbourn. But nothing is definite yet.
Also, changing enrollments can always affect the current setup.
After the VHSL approved the request by the Cardinal and Commonwealth districts to play non-district opponents in May of 2014, Stafford and Freedom switched conferences in a move that was finalized by the VHSL in September.
That flip forced additional changes that were not ironed out until October because it required more than swapping the two schools’ schedules.
If Freedom had remained in Conference 15, it would have finished the regular season with its Route 1 rival Potomac like it usually did in years past. But this was now a non-district game and the schedules had been designed to play the non-district games first followed by the conference contests.
Freedom will now host Potomac Sept. 4 and finish with Colonial Forge Nov. 6. Potomac wraps up at Stafford.
“I would still consider it a sort of rivalry game because of our close proximity to each other and because the kids in the neighborhoods that feed the two schools all grew up together,” Freedom activities director Steve Bryson said of the game with Potomac, which is called the Route 1 Rumble. “So the rivalry is here, but at the same time we want to see the other do well.”
Margheim understands not every school got the exact schedule it wanted, but he was thankful everyone worked through the various trade-offs for the greater good.
“It’s not a perfect scenario, but we did a decent job,” Margheim said.
Although travel was the chief reason the Cardinal and Commonwealth districts requested to play non-district football teams, the revised schedule also allows Conferences 4 and 15 to determine regular-season champions on the field instead of awarding a title based on power points.
The two conferences had no other choice during the last scheduling cycle since they both featured Prince William, Stafford and Spotsylvania schools who did not all play each other. There was no room for out of district play among the four Prince William schools (Hylton, Gar-Field, Woodbridge and Forest Park) in Conference 4 and the two Prince William schools (Potomac and Freedom) in Conference 15.
With the new schedules, some Prince William County schools still found ways to play other county opponents not on their regular-season schedule.
Gar-Field, for example, will scrimmage Osbourn Park and Stonewall Jackson, while Osbourn Park will scrimmage Woodbridge.
Gar-Field activities director Mike Payne also suggested the Cardinal District schools rotate their schedules for the next two-year cycle to allow them to play local teams they did not play in 2014 and 2015.
Of course, this will all depend on how the ever-shifting alignment looks in the future.
Because of the location, the new high school off Route 234 near Hoadly Road, scheduled to open in the fall of 2016, is a logical fit to join Conference 8 members Battlefield, Osbourn Park, Stonewall Jackson, Patriot and Osbourn. But nothing is definite yet.
Also, changing enrollments can always affect the current setup.
After the VHSL approved the request by the Cardinal and Commonwealth districts to play non-district opponents in May of 2014, Stafford and Freedom switched conferences in a move that was finalized by the VHSL in September.
That flip forced additional changes that were not ironed out until October because it required more than swapping the two schools’ schedules.
If Freedom had remained in Conference 15, it would have finished the regular season with its Route 1 rival Potomac like it usually did in years past. But this was now a non-district game and the schedules had been designed to play the non-district games first followed by the conference contests.
Freedom will now host Potomac Sept. 4 and finish with Colonial Forge Nov. 6. Potomac wraps up at Stafford.
“I would still consider it a sort of rivalry game because of our close proximity to each other and because the kids in the neighborhoods that feed the two schools all grew up together,” Freedom activities director Steve Bryson said of the game with Potomac, which is called the Route 1 Rumble. “So the rivalry is here, but at the same time we want to see the other do well.”
Margheim understands not every school got the exact schedule it wanted, but he was thankful everyone worked through the various trade-offs for the greater good.
“It’s not a perfect scenario, but we did a decent job,” Margheim said.
