The Wayne Eagles, a high school football team that reached the Section V semifinals last fall, has decided to join the group that will miss the 2024 regional playoffs.
Wayne coach Dave Marian said the Eagles plan to play this season as an independent team, which means the team will not be eligible to compete in Section V, the popular postseason tournament.
Marian said it was a big decision for Wayne to change its Game 5 federation schedule and change its lineup for games as one of 12 teams in the Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League. In addition to this group, there are other teams that have declared independence in preparation for 2024.
As of now, a total of 17 teams have made their selections for Round V. This further reduces the number of teams in some groups in Section V that participate in the playoffs. The eight-game regular season schedule will also be affected, as teams will have to scramble to find opponents for games this fall.
All of this turmoil comes at a time when there is a desire to improve high school football across the state, but no consensus on the best way to accomplish this. Even though soccer remains the most popular sport in terms of participation, the small roster size is the biggest symptom of the problem.
“We had 19 kids this past year,” Marian said of the Eagles' 2023 roster. “We adjusted our JV players.
“We've had success, but I try to make decisions that are best for our football program. It was a tough hat to wear when you're on the federation (scheduling) committee.”
This move was tough news for Section V soccer.
Scott Barker, the department's athletic coordinator, said between two and six teams per season have chosen to become independent over the past five years. Barker said the best the Section 5 Soccer Committee can do at this point is to figure out why each team is struggling, take a timeout, and continue playing as an independent.
“It could be a conversation starter,” Barker said.
Why former Section 5 soccer team chooses independence
Independent teams can adjust their schedules and choose their opponents. The Section V federation schedule calls for each team to play opponents in classifications based on the school's student enrollment.
“(Independent status and support) is really for programs that are struggling. They don't feel like they can compete in the federation,” Barker said.
In a recent vote, the school decided to maintain the federation's schedule. However, since switching to this system in 2019, complaints have been received. Prior to that year, schools formed leagues based on location and, to some extent, the size of the school's enrollment.
“Some of them aren't happy with the federation's schedule,” Mid-Lakes football coach Dave Whitcomb said. “Sometimes you lose rivalries. There are disagreements. There's also travel involved.”
Monroe coach Terrell Cunningham isn't surprised that the federation vs. league scheduling debate has come up again.
Last season was one of the best in Section V history, both for Monroe and other teams in the Rochester City School District. Except for a forfeited game by Geneva, Monroe won every Class B regular season game by a margin of 40 points or more, advancing to the state tournament semifinals. Another team in the city school district, East High School/World of Inquiry, advanced to the Class A state semifinals.
After that success, Cunningham said there was a desire to return to a league schedule or change the way teams are combined during the regular season.
“Batavia has won seven Section V titles (including six since 2014),” Cunningham said. “Nobody ever said, 'I don't want to play with them anymore.'
“We had to go out there and take our lumps. In 2020 with the pandemic, we didn't win games. We couldn't say, 'No, I don't want to play.'
The call to help fill out regular season schedules for teams and private schools within the city's school districts was one of the reasons and benefits of switching to a federated schedule. The other was to keep the strength of schedule of teams within a classification or group as similar as possible.
Soccer teams to become independent in 2024: list
These independent teams can immediately return to sectional play next season.
- Bishop Carney/Rochester Academy Charter School (Class C combined team, private, charter school)
- Edison/Faculty of the Arts/Early College/Franklin/Northeast/School Without Walls (Rochester City School District Class AA combined team)
- Finney/Northstar (8-person system/private school combined team)
- Clyde Savannah (Class D team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- geneva (Class B team, joins Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League in 2024)
- Greece Olympia/Odyssey (A-class team, independent in 2023)
- Lions/Sodus (Class C team, joins Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League in 2024)
- Marcus Whitman/Bloomfield (Class C team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- mid lakes (B class team, 2nd season of Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League)
- Minders (Class C team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- Newark/Marion (Class B team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- Palmyra-Macedon (Class B team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- Penn Yan/Dandy (Class B team, joins Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League in 2024)
- Southern Seneca/Romulus (Class D team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- waterloo (Class C team, Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League second season)
- Dansville/Wayland – Cohocton (B class team)
- wayne (Class B team, joins Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League in 2024)
ripple effect
There is space for eight teams in each Section 5 soccer tournament, but the classifications continue to shrink.
Class AA is down by one team to eight as Edison's merged teams become independent again. The number of teams in Class A went from 15 to 13 teams as Wilson and East Ridge schools dropped out of the group due to student population growth. Greece's Olympia/Odyssey left Class A after the 2022 season and played independently in 2023.
The move to the Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League took the most from Class B and Class C. Despite the additions of Wilson and Eastridge, Class B was reduced from eight teams to seven. There were nine teams in Class C in 2023, but six teams are scheduled to play this fall, including the new team of merged rivals LeRoy/Caledonia Mumford.
The number of Class D teams increased from six to eight, but with the transfers of Finney and Caledonia Mumford, the eight-man team pool went from seven to five.
Will the size of Section 5 soccer tournaments be reduced in the future? One of the reasons the section was expanded to eight teams was to reward more teams. As more schools, players and their families become part of the postseason experience, reducing the size of the tournament is unlikely to be popular.
Why is it excluded from Round 5 of soccer?
School officials and team coaches in the Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League, which was created in 2023, said a sectional spot is still considered a prize.
However, some teams are struggling to play competitive games, let alone compete for sectional titles.
“Then you start losing programs,” Whitcomb said. “Children don't play. There are no joint ventures or modifications.
“We have to do something to strengthen the program and we have to do something to help it.”
Marian, the Wayne University coach, said the current state of high school football is “scary, especially for the smaller schools.”
“Is the section the most important?” Marian said. “It's to give me a good experience. It wasn't an easy decision (to go independent), but I'm relieved.”
“We lost a lot of kids. When you talk to multi-sport athletes, they say we're not playing the kids that were playing basketball or baseball. I don’t think it’s the same.”
Whitcomb “really saved the program a lot” by organizing the Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League, Marian said.
“This brings us a league title,” Marian said. “That's important for a team that might not be able to compete for a section title. We were kind of in the middle of the pack (in Section V soccer Class B).
“We've had success, but at the same time, I've worked so hard that the program has been canceled. Just to practice with 17, 18, 19 kids and incorporate practice. “Practicing with JV is not good for anyone.” ”
The other eight teams believed it would be a good idea to leave Section V's federated structure after the 2022 season and form the Wayne Finger Lakes Independent League. Wayne, Geneva, Lions/Sodus and Penn Yan/Dundee moved into the league this offseason with plans to “grow all of our programs,” Newark/Marion coach Mike McGaviske said.
“We had an honest conversation about what the kids wanted and what we wanted,” McGaviske said. “I didn’t know who else was going to be independent.
“It became clear that other coaches felt the same way we did, but we didn't know it.”
