Smoke leaves football openers up in the air

Sep. 2—High school football administrators were holding out hope but not overly optimistic season openers would be played here in the Rogue Valley as of late Thursday afternoon due to degrading air quality issues.

Only one school — North Medford — made the proactive move Thursday to avoid any late scrambling and changed venues for its first football game, which was set to be played at Spiegelberg Stadium.

The Black Tornado is now set to open at 7 p.m. at Willamette High School in Eugene on Friday, marking the fifth time in six seasons (including the COVID-delayed 2020 campaign) that there will be no home game at Spiegelberg on opening night.

Last year, North Medford saw its home opener against Del Norte High switch venues and then ultimately get canceled.

The athletic directors at Eagle Point, Phoenix and Cascade Christian — whose teams were the only others set to start the year here locally — said they were still holding out hope that the air quality index would be fine for play here in Southern Oregon on Friday.

With that said, those ADs were also busy Thursday shoring up contingency plans should games ultimately need to be moved out of the area.

Eagle Point's home opener against Ashland could potentially be played in La Pine according to Eagles athletic director Kacey McNulty, and that was the direction the school was headed late Thursday night.

Phoenix athletic director Dave Ehrhardt said, if necessary, his Pirates would open at South Umpqua in a switch of expected homefield advantages.

Cascade Christian AD Nate Mayben said the Challengers' ultimate decision will come Friday morning, with a Plan B of switching to the Douglas High home field.

"Even though we've been through this so many years in a row," said Ashland football coach Beau Lehnerz of the AQI issues and potential game movements, "it's always like a gut punch. Our hopes were up this summer and it seemed to be relatively clear and be what we want it to be to get our games in with no smoke and no cancellations. But we'll deal with it as best as possible, just like everyone else here in the valley."

"Ideally we have everything line up and we get to play as scheduled," added Lehnerz, "but we'll see."

Continued spread of the Rum Creek Fire has pushed smoke into the unhealthy range here in the Medford area and hazardous range around Grants Pass, leaving any game being played locally in question as schools adhere to air quality guidelines.

The guidelines were created by the Oregon School Activities Association in consultation with the Oregon Health Authority and Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. They were revised in July to change the cutoff for the mandatory cancellation of games from an AQI exceeding 100 to now at 151 and over — and that 50-point move could very well make all the difference for the potential of home contests.

"Football is all about dealing with adversity," said Lehnerz, "but it takes a toll on the mental part when you're trying to get ready for a game and things are altered and you're suddenly scrambling just to have the game even happen."

New conference alignments for the 2022 football season should bring plenty of intrigue for local fans as the season kicks off Friday night — regardless of where the games will be played.

When Ashland and Eagle Point square off Friday night at Eagle Stadium, it will be the first nonconference matchup between the two Southern Oregon football programs in the last 43 years.

It's one of a handful of surreal situations local football fans will find this fall as the OSAA used this current classification time block to make some changes designed to create a better competitive balance and fit for teams.

Ashland now finds itself in a newly named Class 4A Big Sky Conference that includes a bulk of the traditional Skyline Conference schools from previous years plus Marshfield and North Bend. The Grizzlies are coming off an 0-8 campaign after playing a JV schedule during the 2021 spring season. Ashland's last win at the varsity level came in the first round of the 2019 state playoffs against Dallas, when the Grizzlies finished 9-2.

Ashland High has seen a decrease in enrollment figures for years, and Lehnerz said his players are excited about a change of scenery in the Big Sky Conference and being able to square off against teams that bear a similar look rather than what the 5A Midwestern League had to offer.

"I feel like that mental aspect for the kids of we're going to play teams that are maybe more like us in size motivates themselves a little more and into thinking, hey, we've got a shot against these guys as opposed to when you have maybe 30 kids and you look across the field and they've got 70."

The immediate urge for the Grizzly players was to feel like they were going to be able to cruise through games by dropping down from the 5A ranks to 4A, but Lehnerz has cautioned that the teams in the Big Sky are definitely not ones to be overlooked.

"I felt like the Midwestern League was one of the toughest conferences in the state," said Lehnerz, "and I feel the same way about this 4A conference. Mazama and Henley are tough, Marshfield won (the 4A state title) last year and Hidden Valley (was in the 3A final in 2019). We've got a history of champions in this conference, so it's no cakewalk at all.

Eagle Point remains at the 5A level with Crater and in the Midwestern League, which remains largely intact from a year ago but adds South Eugene (6A), which is making its competitive return after not fielding a team the past two years.

With the Bend-area schools essentially forming their own 5A conference, there was a void left at the 6A level among the Southwest Conference and Salem-area schools — so it was ultimately decided to just lump them all together and see how it works out.

"I love the conference," said Sheldon head coach Josh Line, whose team is the title favorite in 2022. "For us it was a no-brainer; I thought it was good for everyone involved."

"I think our league is going to be better," added Line, "but it's going to be a tougher league, too, and that's gonna have an impact on the bodies, so staying healthy is always important but I think it's going to be an even bigger thing."

The 10-team South/Central Football Conference features an imbalanced schedule for a two-year trial basis and then the group will reconvene to see how that is going.

"At 10 teams, you've got to play nine conference games to play everyone," said North Medford head coach Nathan Chin, "and nobody really wants to start out having games that count toward conference on their Game 1. That was a huge part of the conversation."

Another twist this year at the 6A level is that there will be two different state playoff brackets, one for the top 16 teams from a blend of the six conference champions and next 10 highest ranked teams in the state power rankings and the other in a Columbia Cup bracket for the remaining 16 qualifying teams.

"Let's be honest, and I have said this for a long time," said South Medford head coach Bill Singler, "there's only about six or eight teams in the last 15 years that go on to the semifinals anyway. We broke that rank once (in 2017) and West Salem has gotten into that group once or twice, but other than that the Portland schools dominate that with Sheldon. It's the same cast of characters that make the top eight every year."

"What they're saying with this," Singler added of the split bracketing, "is let's make it a little better for everyone else now. Now, for instance, if we finish 18th in the power rankings, well we have a better chance to win a first-round game than we did in the first round the way it was. At least you've got a chance to play for something, I don't care about a trophy or anything, but at least you've got a chance to keep your season going and maybe play a couple more games in the playoffs. Guys have a little bit more hope now if they're outside that top group."

In another change that will affect local teams, Phoenix joins the 3A Far West League with Cascade Christian and St. Mary's.

Similar to Ashland, the move won't be to a less competitive conference — the Challengers and South Umpqua expect to be in the state champion conversation — but could allow for a depleted Pirates program to start building a foundation against more similar squads.

Phoenix last won a game on Oct. 19, 2019, against McLoughlin/Griswold during a 2-6 campaign, and carries a 15-game losing streak into 2022.

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