After three years of pretending to be a Class 4A school, Meadowdale will give the real thing a try in the fall.
Meadowdale — one of three Class 3A schools playing in the Western Conference South Division along with seven 4A schools — has surpassed the 1,200 students allowed in Class 3A.
According to the school’s athletic director Julee Valoff, Meadowdale’s official count is 1,239. Though nothing will change during the regular season, the Mavericks will have to qualify for the 4A postseason starting with the 2004-05 school year.
“The move to 4A — it’s not like it’s duck and hide,” Meadowdale football coach Mark Stewart said. “The playoff situation at 3A was probably better, but we have to get there first.”
For the past three seasons, the 3A teams in the South Division have qualified for the postseason in a variety of ways set up by the Northwest District. For football, the team with the best record among the three 3A schools — Meadowdale, Lynnwood and Shorecrest — qualified for a district playoff game against a team from the Northwest League.
For basketball, volleyball, softball and baseball, two of the Wesco 3A teams earned district berths, and the No. 3 qualified if it had a better record than the Northwest League’s No. 6 team.
This school year, there are three state berths for the 11 Class 3A schools in the Northwest District. The 16 Class 4A schools have just two berths. It is possible that the district could earn a third berth for 4A with the addition of Meadowdale. Either way, getting to and competing in the postseason will be more difficult for Meadowdale, which will be one of the smallest 4A schools in the state.
“Obviously, you’d rather be a big 3A than a small 4A,” said Stewart, whose team qualified for the 3A postseason in 2003 but would have been left out of the 4A playoff picture. “But, it’s not going to affect us that much, as far as the league. And that’s the bulk of the season.”
Meadowdale had been just under the limit of 1,200 in recent years, but had a surge in enrollment in the fall, Valoff said. Schools count students in grades 10-12 each month from January through May and again October through December. Those counts, which end up involving four classes, are averaged to determine the school’s Washington Interscholastic Activities Association classification.
Most schools had an idea of their numbers early in the school year … but not Meadowdale.
“It came out of left field for everybody,” Stewart said. “Over Christmas break, we got an e-mail — oh, by the way … and Merry Christmas.”
Aaron Coe writes for The Herald in Everett.
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