Threes not company

Clovis High Athletic Director Brian Stacy has long argued against keeping Clovis in a three-team district while the rest of Class 5A competes in four- and five-team fields. For the next five years, Portales will likely be making the same arguments.

Both schools ended up in three-team districts for major sports as the New Mexico Activities Association approved realignment Wednesday.

For most sports, Clovis is in District 4-5A with Carlsbad and Hobbs, while Portales will be in District 5-3A with Lovington and Ruidoso.

The NMAA added a new classification, Class B, for the basketball season. Full district alignments are available at the association’s Web site at www.nmact.org.

Portales Athletic Director Andy Correll doesn’t like the three-team district format, but was thankful the NMAA went away from a previous proposal that put Portales into Class 4A.

“Putting us with Roswell, Goddard and Artesia — even though we play two out of those three (in pre-district), we can’t compete with that,” said Correll, who in December coached the football team to its first Class 3A state title since 1988. “Not that we wouldn’t have tried.”

Instead, Correll’s frustration is the smaller district, with former 4-3A foes Dexter and New Mexico Military Institute dropping to Class 2A.

Stacy said the only thing he wanted in district realignment was at least an additional team in District 4-5A, but there may not be another chance at that until the 2014-15 athletic season.

“The only thing I wanted to do was get us out of the three-team district,” Stacy said. “They’re not good for seeding purposes, they’re not good for scheduling purposes.”

In terms of smaller schools, Class 1A and 2A teams will still play Class B teams, Floyd Athletic Director Rafael Roybal said, simply for logistical purposes. But come tournament time, the smallest of the small schools will not be competing with other small schools three times their size.

“I’m not much for the Bs, but the people at the bottom of the totem pole were looking for a chance to compete.”

In eight-man football, Floyd and Clovis Christian are in District 3, while Logan and Melrose are in District 1. That means teams could easily travel through non-district cities on the way to games against district opponents.

“I thought they were trying to make everything travel friendly, but they’ve got us playing in Springer and Menaul’s district (in basketball), and that doesn’t make sense to me,” Melrose Athletic Director Dickie Roybal said. “I guess they’ve got to do what they’ve got to do.”