Sports
New Football Sections Released By MSHSL
Section 4AAAAAA will include: Stillwater Area, Roseville Area, Woodbury, White Bear Lake, North, Mounds View, Forest Lake and Cretin-Derham Hall.
The new Class 6A football sections set to take begin for the 2012 season have been released.
The Minnesota State High School League announced this spring that it would expand to a six-class, 11-man football playoff system beginning in 2012. The expansion called for a 32-team Class 6A tournament, which will be broken into four, eight-team sections: Section 3, 4, 5 and 6.
Section 4AAAAAA will include: Roseville Area, Stillwater Area, Woodbury, White Bear Lake, North, Mounds View, Forest Lake and Cretin-Derham Hall. The eight teams will compete in section play, with one team advancing to the new four-team Class 6A state tournament.
Find out what's happening in Stillwaterfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Section 6AAAAAA will be a powerhouse section, with three teams—Eden Prairie, Minnetonka and Wayzata—winning six of the past seven Class 5A state titles. Cretin-Derham Hall is the lone team to win the state title in that span, which happened in 2009.
The idea behind the expansion was to level the playing field for the bigger schools vs. smaller schools that had been assigned to their classes, Stillwater Area High School Activities Director Ricky Michel said. The difference in enrollment between schools in Class 5A was better than two to one. With the largest 32 schools classified together this should allow for a more competitive environment for all schools at playoff time.
Find out what's happening in Stillwaterfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Overall, the new football sections really isn't a big change for Stillwater, Michel said.
"Most of the schools in our section are also from our conference," he said. "Traditional powers Cretin, Mounds View and Stillwater will still be battling for a state berth."
The only negative in the expansion is that the largest 32 schools will lose a potential playoff game, Michel said. The sections are still eight teams, but the state tournament will be the final four instead of eight.
"I would think that would hurt the gate for the high school league," he said. "The largest schools tend to bring in the larger crowds and four less games for an opening round will definitely affect revenue."
