The Lewis & Clark is going back to two divisions. For the past 15 years or so they've had three divisions. Each team will be required to play each team in their division once. I'm not quite sure what the requirements were previously but I think it was they had to play a minimum number of teams from the conference as a whole. The divisions will be as follows:
Lewis Division - Allen and Emerson-Hubbard (collectively Tri-County Northeast), Hartington-Newcastle, Homer, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, Ponca, Wakefield, Walthill, and Winnebago
Clark Division - Bloomfield, Creighton, Osmond, Plainview, Randolph, Wausa, Winside and Wynot
While the divisions are geographically split it also appears the larger schools are all in the Lewis Division and smaller schools in the Clark Division. While I'm not a fan of large high school conferences I do like how they are splitting this up.
In another interesting move they are changing the format of the conference basketball tournaments. Instead of having a 16 team conference tournament they are having two 8 team brackets divided by the top 8 and bottom 8. This will help in not having meaningless blowouts in the first round for the majority of games. Another reason they stated in the minutes is so that a Division 1 team is not losing power points by being forced to play a Division 4 team. The tournament almost always seems to get delayed by weather at some point so I'm guessing having one less round of games to play should help keep it on schedule as well. The last interesting note was they agreed to play the Championship for the top bracket on a non member school neutral court but it doesn't appear they know where that would be. The game has been in Laurel but has been moved the past two years due to the boys team making it. The game was played at Hartington Cedar Catholic both times as a replacement. In the minutes they made reference to Wayne State College as a possibility. I would love to see it return to the college campus like it was 20+ years ago. I few years ago when Bago was lead by Wingett and they battled Ponca that game would have been awesome at WSC. The stage probably would have been in use that night.
Lastly, in an unrelated note but involving a member school. Emerson Hubbard approved at their recent school board minutes to not allow option enrollments out of the district any longer. Are you aware of any other schools doing this? They are a fledgling district that has lost a lot of enrollment in the past 10-20 years but this seems like an odd controlling move. I've viewed their administration and school board as backwards thinking and have questioned a lot of their decisions on here in the past. This seems like a reactive approach to stop the bleeding, which it will accomplish, but in the big picture makes them look petty and taking a last resort to bandage an open wound and not fixing the real issues. It could even have a negative effect on a family potentially buying a house in the district that chooses not to because they have no option for schooling. Thoughts?
Lewis Division - Allen and Emerson-Hubbard (collectively Tri-County Northeast), Hartington-Newcastle, Homer, Laurel-Concord-Coleridge, Ponca, Wakefield, Walthill, and Winnebago
Clark Division - Bloomfield, Creighton, Osmond, Plainview, Randolph, Wausa, Winside and Wynot
While the divisions are geographically split it also appears the larger schools are all in the Lewis Division and smaller schools in the Clark Division. While I'm not a fan of large high school conferences I do like how they are splitting this up.
In another interesting move they are changing the format of the conference basketball tournaments. Instead of having a 16 team conference tournament they are having two 8 team brackets divided by the top 8 and bottom 8. This will help in not having meaningless blowouts in the first round for the majority of games. Another reason they stated in the minutes is so that a Division 1 team is not losing power points by being forced to play a Division 4 team. The tournament almost always seems to get delayed by weather at some point so I'm guessing having one less round of games to play should help keep it on schedule as well. The last interesting note was they agreed to play the Championship for the top bracket on a non member school neutral court but it doesn't appear they know where that would be. The game has been in Laurel but has been moved the past two years due to the boys team making it. The game was played at Hartington Cedar Catholic both times as a replacement. In the minutes they made reference to Wayne State College as a possibility. I would love to see it return to the college campus like it was 20+ years ago. I few years ago when Bago was lead by Wingett and they battled Ponca that game would have been awesome at WSC. The stage probably would have been in use that night.
Lastly, in an unrelated note but involving a member school. Emerson Hubbard approved at their recent school board minutes to not allow option enrollments out of the district any longer. Are you aware of any other schools doing this? They are a fledgling district that has lost a lot of enrollment in the past 10-20 years but this seems like an odd controlling move. I've viewed their administration and school board as backwards thinking and have questioned a lot of their decisions on here in the past. This seems like a reactive approach to stop the bleeding, which it will accomplish, but in the big picture makes them look petty and taking a last resort to bandage an open wound and not fixing the real issues. It could even have a negative effect on a family potentially buying a house in the district that chooses not to because they have no option for schooling. Thoughts?
Last edited:
