OA, North Attleboro Will Switch Divisions in 2016

North_OA
By Ryan Lanigan, Editor-in-Chief
TAUNTON, Mass. – The Hockomock League will have a slightly new look when September 2016 rolls around. Based on enrollment numbers as of October 2015, Oliver Ames will move to the Kelley-Rex division and North Attleboro will compete in the league’s Davenport division.
As part of the league bylaws, the league’s alignment is reviewed every four years. The principals and athletic directors of the 12 schools meet and review the student enrollment numbers to decide the alignment of the divisions. The meeting happened on Tuesday at Taunton High School. The league aimed to have it’s realignment check in the same year that the MIAA does its count.
The divisions are strictly based on numbers – the top six most populated are in the Kelley-Rex and the next six are in the Davenport.
According to Taunton athletic director Mark Ottavianelli, the league’s president this year, Oliver Ames had 1192 students and North Attleboro had 1174 as of October 2015 and therefore the two will switch divisions starting with the 2016-2017 school year. The next review will come in the Fall of 2019.
“We’re excited to renew our rivalries with schools like Canton and Foxboro among others,” North Attleboro athletic director Kurt Kummer said. “We are more traditionalists and liked the league as a whole like it was before the split. We’d rather play as many Hockomock teams as we could, we’d play everyone twice if we could.”
“I think the split has done what we had intended for it to do. You can see how the Davenport teams have improved.”
The Hockomock League originally split into two divisions in 2010 when Attleboro joined the league. When Taunton and Milford joined in 2012, the Tigers became the biggest school in the league and the Scarlet Hawks joined the Davenport.
“We look forward to competing in the Kelley-Rex,” Matthews said. “When they established the divisions, it was pretty clear that the census would be looked at every four years. We had more [students] than North Attleboro.
“There is a lot of strong athletic tradition in the Kelley-Rex schools so we look forward to competing with them,” Matthews said.
The sports that it will have an immediate impact on will be cross country, indoor and outdoor track, swimming, wrestling, golf and football. In those sports, only the games against division opponents count towards league standings. In all other sports, games against opposite division opponents count toward league standings.
For example in cross country, the teams only have meets against other division opponents to determine a division champion. Now Oliver Ames, whose boys and girls cross country teams have won five division titles over the past six seasons, will now compete directly against perennial league power Mansfield.
In golf and football, although teams might compete against teams from the other division, they don’t count towards league standings. An example occurred just this September when King Philip’s football game against Foxboro did not affect league standings for either team.
For Fall 2016, Oliver Ames football will play its league games against Attleboro, Franklin, King Philip, Mansfield and Taunton while North Attleboro will take on Canton, Foxboro, Milford, Sharon and Stoughton. There are still two non-league games that the team’s can take advantage of in the beginning of the season (crossover non-league games we saw in 2015 include North/Stoughton, Milford/Franklin and Foxboro/KP).
Over the past three sport seasons (Winter 2014-2015, Spring 2015 and Fall 2015), Oliver Ames has won 10 Davenport division titles, including boys basketball, boys and girls indoor track, baseball, girls outdoor track, boys and girls soccer, field hockey, golf and boys cross country. In that same span, North Attleboro claimed eight Kelley-Rex championships, including girls basketball, wrestling, boys indoor track, boys and girls tennis, boys and girls outdoor track and football.
Via Ottavianelli, below are the official school enrollment numbers as of October 2015 from smallest to largest.
Foxboro – 842
Canton – 958
Stoughton – 1051
Milford – 1107
Sharon – 1152
North Attleboro – 1174
Oliver Ames – 1192
King Philip – 1337
Mansfield – 1338
Attleboro – 1665
Franklin – 1730
Taunton – 1868 (2491 including 8th grade)
Ryan Lanigan can be contacted at RyanLanigan@hockomocksports.com and followed on Twitter at @R_Lanigan.