Bulldog Sports
Bulldogs anxious to see new UIL realignment
New Waverly will contend in any district, head coach says
As today’s date has neared the past couple of weeks, New Waverly football head coach Ken Craig has been anxious to see what is in store for his team.
The University Interscholastic League will announce the new reclassification and realignment for the 2010-11 and 2011-12 school years this morning at 9. The hour-long program will air on Fox Sports Houston at 9 a.m. and will also be streamed online at FoxSportsHouston.com.
“It’s a little bit like Christmas for us coaches,” Craig said before New Waverly’s boys and girls basketball games against Buffalo on Jan. 22. “You try to get ideas of what people think is going to happen. You open the box and see what Santa Claus brought you.
“Then of course, there’s a frenzy afterward as you try to get your nondistrict schedule down to see who’s interested in playing you.
“It’ll be interesting to see where you end up.”
There will be a different wrinkle in the next two years for Class 2A, which is where Craig expects the Bulldogs to stay.
Starting this fall, Class 2A schools with the largest enrollment will be predetermined to be Division I or large schools and compete in districts with only Division I teams. The same would be true with the smaller half of Class 2A. In both divisions, the top two teams in each district will advance to the playoffs.
In the past, the football teams that had the largest enrollment of playoff-bound teams from its respective districts were placed into the Division I bracket. This created scenarios where Division II teams had larger enrollment numbers than several Division I teams.
“I think more than anything, it levels the playing field,” said Craig, who is also the school’s athletic director. “Sometimes we would face teams in the playoffs who had 150 more kids at their disposal. They would have twice the number of coaches and kids than we would have. They could almost two-platoon, while we wouldn’t have the resources to do that.”
According to the projection on HuddleUpTexas.com, teams like White Oak, Ponder, Woodville and Daingerfield, which have knocked Bulldogs teams out of the playoffs the past two years, would be designated into Division I.
In that projection, New Waverly will be in District 12-2A with Anderson-Shiro, Corrigan-Camden, Deweyville, Groveton and Hemphill.
Craig has seen various other projections, but admitted that it’s all just a guessing game.
“We’ve seen some projections where we may go a little bit east, which would have schools like Deweyville and Hemphill,” Craig said. “We’ve also seen others that would have us with Garrison or Warren or San Augustine, although I think they may be moving down to (Class) 1A.
“We can’t go too much south, because there are a lot of larger schools in the Houston area.”
Regardless of where the Bulldogs end up, Craig is confident that his team, which has won two straight outright district championships, will compete for a third.
“We’re going to have another strong team and we’ll be in the mix for a district championship whatever district we’re in,” Craig added. “Our offensive line has been working hard in the weight room, getting bigger and stronger. We’re also going to have quality skill guys as good or better than what we had this past year.”
- Bulldog Sports
-
-
All-State Bulldogs
After advancing all the way to the regional semifinals as relative unknowns with little playoff experience in 2009, the Bulldogs knew they would have a lot more attention in 2010.
Ranked among the top five in the state for most the season, New Waverly did not disappoint. -
Dynamic Duo
NEW WAVERLY — The taste is still bitter for the Bulldogs.
The New Waverly baseball squad is still haunted from last year’s surprising exit in the regional semifinals against White Oak. The Dogs took game one of the best-of-three series and had a 6-1 lead in the second contest heading into the bottom of the fourth inning.
Things went terribly wrong from there and New Waverly was left wondering what happened as White Oak rallied to win two in a row and steal the series. -
Complete package
NEW WAVERLY — New Waverly baseball coach Tommy Bohannon was hoping he could talk Hardin, the Bulldogs’ area-round playoff opponent, into moving up next week’s series to accommodate the state track and field meet.
-
New Waverly boys still within range of advancing to state
After finishing their first round on the Oak Hurst Course at Peach Tree Golf Club in Bullard, things looked bleak for the New Waverly boys as they turned in a team score of 372.
-
Bulldogs are back again in 2010
They’ve been here before and know Austin all too well.Two years ago, the New Waverly Bulldogs made their first trip to the state tournament, but it ended rather quickly in a disappointing blowout loss to Tuscola Jim Ned.
Then last March, the Bulldogs got past Shallowater and advanced to the state championship game only to fall to defending state champion Ponder 51-39.
This time around, the Bulldogs are determined to take another step forward and come back with a state championship. They’re back again in 2010, and they say they’re going to finish the job this time. -
Bulldogs pass first test
NEW CANEY — Though it had been more than a week since the New Waverly boys played a meaningful game, the Dogs didn’t show an ounce of rust Thursday night.
With a strong defensive effort, the top-ranked Bulldogs cruised past East Chambers 78-36 and into the Region III quarterfinals where they’ll face either fourth-ranked Kountze or Buffalo early next week. -
Lady Dogs live to play another day
Leading by 16 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter, it appeared as if the Lady Dogs would coast to an easy playoff victory.
The only problem was that Kirbyville never stopped playing. The feisty Ladycats made a game out of it.
Barely, the Lady Dogs held on, escaping with a 52-51 victory in Angelina College’s Shands Gym to advance to the area round of the Class 2A playoffs. - Lady Bulldogs start playoffs Monday night in Lufkin
- Dogs clinch outright district title NEW WAVERLY — If the Bulldogs haven’t already made space in the trophy case, they can do so now.
- Lady Hornets set playoff date The Lady Hornets might have lost out on an outright district title Tuesday night at Willis, but the Lady Hornets got a big win Wednesday.
- More Bulldog Sports Headlines
-
All-State Bulldogs
