Significant changes proposed for Maine’s high school basketball classifications

By Larry Mahoney, Bangor Daily News Staff

Significant changes in Maine’s high school basketball classifications for next season have been introduced in a proposal by the basketball committees from each of the three tournament sites in Portland, Bangor, and Augusta.

The proposal is in its draft phase, according to Phil St. Onge, a member of the Portland basketball committee.

“We haven’t finalized it yet. We’re getting feedback on it,” St. Onge said. “If somebody has a better idea, we want to hear it.”

Two of the most noteworthy changes in the proposal would be a beefing up of Class AA and a Class D that would only include schools with fewer than 100 students. The proposal would swell the number of AA South teams to 16 and the AA North group to 12.

The final proposal will go to the classification and interscholastic management committees for approval before a final vote will be taken by the school principals in the spring. Schools will have an opportunity to appeal to the basketball, classification and interscholastic management committees if they don’t like where their school is placed.

Class AA North and South each have seven teams this season. The quarterfinal round games for Class AA in the tournament will again be played at the home court of the higher seeded teams. All seven teams make it and the top teams in the Heal Points Standings receive a quarterfinal-round bye.

The semifinals and regional championship games will be played at the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland.

In the proposal, AA South would include current teams Thornton Academy of Saco, Sanford, Bonny Eagle of Buxton, South Portland, Deering of Portland, Scarborough and Gorham, as well as current AA North teams Portland, Windham and Cheverus of Portland and current Class A South schools Noble High School of North Berwick, Massabesic of Waterboro, Westbrook, Biddeford, Falmouth, and Kennebunk.

In Class AA North, current teams Lewiston, Bangor, Oxford Hills of South Paris, and Edward Little of Auburn would be accompanied by current A South schools Mt. Ararat of Topsham and Brunswick and A North schools Hampden Academy, Brewer, Camden Hills of Rockport, Messalonskee of Oakland, Skowhegan and Mt. Blue of Farmington.

The committee wanted AA to have its boys and girls tournaments at one site and not have a quarterfinal round on home courts, St. Onge said.

The likely tournament sites next year would be the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland for AA South and the Augusta Civic Center for AA North.

Class A South would expand from 13 to 15 teams and A North would go from 10 to 13 teams.

The Class A North tournament had been held at the Bangor Auditorium for several years but when the class became top-heavy with teams from central Maine, it was moved to the Augusta Civic Center.

Of the 10 teams currently in A North, seven are closer to Augusta and three closer to Bangor.

Under the new proposal, eight of the 13 teams would be nearer to Bangor, so that could open up discussion for returning the A North tournament to Bangor or developing a rotation with Bangor hosting it one year and Augusta the following year.

The teams that would be closer to Bangor would be Nokomis of Newport, Hermon, Old Town, Ellsworth, John Bapst of Bangor, Mount Desert Island, Belfast, and Presque Isle, while the schools nearer to Augusta would be Cony of Augusta, Gardiner, Erskine Academy of South China, Lawrence of Fairfield, and Waterville.

Class B North would drop from 17 to 14 teams and B South would go from 15 to 14.

Class C North would lose one team, going from 17 to 16 schools, and C South would lose four in dropping from 16 to 12.

The new Class D, with all schools having fewer than 100 students, would contain 19 schools compared with the current 29.

The North would lose six schools in going from 16 to 10 teams and the South would drop from 13 to nine schools.

But St. Onge said the current list of D schools for next season could change because more schools could be added if they get enough players.

“We hope they come back,” St. Onge said.

He said the feedback from the Class D administrators has been very positive.

“It gets them away from playing bigger schools. They were really enthusiastic,” St. Onge said.

The feedback on the overall proposal has been favorable, St. Onge said.

“We think we did what was best for most schools,” St. Onge said. “It’s not perfect but it was as good as we could have done given the limitations we had. We feel strongly about it. We put a lot of work into it. We tried to group the classes together as evenly as we could.”

He noted that the teams with the lowest enrollments in the respective classes are usually the ones that feel shorted.

Mike Bisson, assistant executive director of the Maine Principals Association, said he felt the basketball committees did a good job addressing the areas that needed to be addressed.

The eventual reclassification will be good for a two-year cycle and the current enrollments will remain the same for the two-year cycle and are based on last April’s figures, Bisson said.