Canyon May Be That Good

That the Canyon girls basketball team is good qualifies as news along the lines of water is wet. The Lady Eagles are always good (at worst) and have often been closer to great, as 14 state championships would attest.

Nobody should make too much out of the fact that Canyon clobbered Big Spring 91-15 in Tuesday's bidistrict round, although the case for a basketball mercy rule and the case against four teams in the playoffs both got strong arguments from that game. And comparing scores may be a fool's game, but that might be the best evidence of why the Lady Eagles could end up in the state tournament.

Canyon closed out the District 3-4A season undefeated by routing Pampa 64-8 in the last game of the regular season. The Lady Eagles had already clinched the district title and closed out an unbeaten 3-4A season, while Pampa had already secured the district's fourth playoff spot. That game could be read as a precursor of the Canyon-Big Spring debacle a week later, and evidence that Pampa was an undeserving fourth place team, right?

Not so fast. In the first round of the playoffs against perennial power Plainview, Pampa led early in the game and was tied 11-11 at the end of the first quarter at the Hutcherson Center in Plainview, hardly a neutral court. Maybe the Lady Harvesters had a flashback to their ordeal in Canyon, and they went scoreless in the second quarter, a huge factor in a 63-42 loss to Plainview which ended their season.

Take away that second quarter, and Pampa played nearly even with Plainview. It was the second time I'd seen the Lady Harvesters play this season, the other time being a 63-33 loss at second-place Palo Duro, the only team to give Canyon a scare in district play this season.

In both of those games, the young Lady Harvesters struggled against teams who had superior experience and athletic ability. But not once did it seem to me that from a coaching or playing standpoint that Pampa was completely incompetent. That would be the image one would take away from Pampa's loss to Canyon, but considering how respectably the Lady Harvesters played against a good Plainview team, that had more to do with Canyon's ability than Pampa's lack of ability.

It's one thing to make too big a deal out of Canyon's destruction of a Big Spring team which won only one game in District 4-4A. Canyon's margin of victory was 29 points greater than the next biggest rout in Region I-4A's bidistrict round. But when you consider that Plainview actually had to fight to beat a team which the Lady Eagles defeated by 56 points a week earlier, what does that say about where Canyon stands right now?

Why Not Play Twice?

Thanks to the peculiarities of Monday's UIL realignment, a four-team district was created in District 1-3A, which consists of Borger, Dalhart, Pampa and Perryton. This creates a major scheduling headache for football coaches at all four schools, since with only three district games on the schedule, they have to fill 6-7 available slots with nondistrict opponents.

Scheduling games throughout September isn't much of a problem, but once you get into October (and on paper, 1-3A might not start district play until the fourth Friday of October) there's a problem, as most teams are already into district play. Pampa coach Heath Parker said he was potentially looking at back-to-back open weeks before starting district.

While you can blame the UIL for creating such a conundrum, the superintendents in 1-3A can solve it easily _ by scheduling a double round-robin like all the other sports do. It may seem unusual for football, but it might be the best solution.

It would create six district games (more than the reconstituted District 2-5A will play) and would be completely fair in terms of scheduling, with each team getting three home and three away games. The way it stands now, some 1-3A teams will have only one home and two away games.

A four-team East Texas 5A district with teams in Longview and Tyler was forced into the same situation in 2002-03, and they went with the double round-robin format as a solution. Maybe teams won't like playing each other twice in a season, this is a clear situation where 1-3A should try to make lemonade out of lemons.

After The Dust Has Cleared

The UIL realignment picture is now clear, a lot more so than the roads around Amarillo anyway. The grand 10-team experiment of District 2-5A is now over, and nobody anywhere seems to be shedding any tears over its impending demise. Amarillo and Lubbock schools are up here (as is San Angelo Central for football _ figure that one out) while the Midland and Odessa schools are down there. So we can put an end to the talk about who's better, West Texas or the Panhandle, when it comes to football anyway.

Old timers to the south thought the breakup of the Little Southwest Conference two years ago was akin to the Beatles breaking up, and now they're placated for the next two years. I do question how much they'd want defending state champion Abilene High back in their district for two years. But that might be as long as it lasts.

Considering that the low number for Class 5A dropped to 2,065 this past year, it's highly unlikely that it would drop again in 2012. For argument's sake, let's say it rises to 2,100, which could be a conservative estimate. Amarillo High is currently at 2,089 students, and is relatively landlocked on the west side of town. There doesn't appear to be a big spike in enrollment for AHS, which turned in a lower number this year than in 2008. AISD athletic director Brad Thiessen has even hinted that Amarillo High at the very least may drop to 4A in 2012, and Tascosa could also be on the bubble.

Put aside for a second the possibility of District 3-4A volleyball in which a fifth-place team could win most other districts in the state in any classification, and there are some tantilizing (or terrifying) possibilities depending on your point of view. If Amarillo High drops, that would probably force the Lubbock schools back with the Midland and Odessa schools and Central for an eight-team district, which would likely be nine teams if Tascosa stays up.

That would force Abilene High and perhaps Abilene Cooper (depending on some creative boundary drawings?) into a Metroplex district, signaling the end of the LSWC for good. So while we can celebrate the reduced travel which this realignment brings from the Panhandle to the Concho Valley, it could be just a stay of execution. Let's enjoy this dance while we can.