Roxana is back where it belongs and East Alton-Wood River is wondering where it belongs.
That’s the latest report in the ever-shifting sands of area high school conferences, specifically the continually evolving South Central one. It’s still compacting, though the spinning may have stopped.
Roxana, which was booted out of the SCC in may, now is back in good graces. so the Shells, scheduled to depart during the fall of 2012, can change their travel plans. and they are happy about it.
Conference principals have approved Roxana’s return to the 10-school league, thus rescinding the expulsion order from the past spring. The Shells are back where they want to be, though they must be curious if it’ll be a soft landing.
I hope so because I don’t think the SCC had a good reason to punt them the first time. Yet when Nokomis decided to stay in the Prairie State instead of rejoining the SCC, that opened an opportunity for Roxana to come back.
“It’s nice to be part of the conference again because we always wanted to stay in it,” Roxana director of athletics Mike Kurth said.
The same goes for Marquette Catholic and EA-WR, both of whom were jettisoned with Roxana. The Explorers said they got the message and hooked up with a restructured Prairie State for football.
Metro East Lutheran of Edwardsville and Decatur Lutheran are also coming into the Prairie. Kincaid South Fork, Bunker Hill, Mount Olive and Nokomis remain. Staunton and Gillespie, presently in the Prairie, are returning to the SCC in the fall of 2012.
And what of EA-WR?
It seems as if the Oilers will have to fend for themselves. They expressed interest in the Cahokia Conference and that hasn’t panned out yet. EA-WR also likes the look of the revised Prairie State, but I don’t know if there are enough votes to bring the Oilers into it.
The Oilers were also willing to go back to the SCC, yet the Shells got the call. Two schools don’t fit nicely into one opening.
“I wish we could get EA-WR back in the conference, but that’s not my decision,” Kurth said.
The result is that EA-WR is left with an uninviting independent status by the fall of 2012. Another possibility is going back to the Mississippi Valley Conference, where the Oilers surfaced in the early 1970s.
I’m not sure if that’s a good idea because the Oilers would be the smallest school in the MVC, which currently has six representatives: Civic Memorial, Jersey, Triad, Highland, Mascoutah and Waterloo.
Frankly, it’d be very rugged for the EA-WR football program, an 0-9 finisher the past fall in the SCC.
Obviously, the Oilers have some work to do in getting a new fit — somewhere.
Football is the toughest schedule to fill. now that Roxana is returning to the SCC, that means starting in 2012, the Shells and Oilers won’t play each other in their annual Oil Bowl.
Roxana will have nine conference games and no room on its schedule for EA-WR, unless the Oilers somehow wind up back in the SCC. That seems unlikely by the fall of 2012, though stranger things have happened.
If you want proof of it, just remember what happened earlier this year.
I wonder if this Roxana/EA-WR sports split could galvanize a school consolidation effort between the rivals. Then again, it may spur an opposite reaction.
OUT AND ABOUT: The Valley would consider expansion, but with a six-team league, it wants two more schools, not just one. Breese Mater Dei and Centralia are possibilities, but there seems to be no immediate urge to add them … Despite East St. Louis’ tangled web of trouble that forced the Flyers to forfeit five football wins, I don’t think they are in danger of getting kicked out of the Southwestern Conference. It also wouldn’t be smart of them to think about leaving and taking the independent route. Now-closed East St. Louis Lincoln did that for years and the Tigers’ nonconference status was hardly appealing.
<a href="http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/roxana-3454-televarsity-belongs-spot.htmltag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://www.thetelegraph.com/sports/roxana-3454-televarsity-belongs-spot.htmlSun, 12 Dec 2010 05:05:38 GMT 00:00″>Roxana returning to SCC; EA-WR still seeking spot
