The AMAC is finally gone, BW Basketball

[TDHelmick]

After speaking with a good handful of local coaches and Athletic Directors following the most recent AMAC meeting from a week ago, the AMAC sports league is apparently finished. Pretty much a done deal. The driving force behind the league's demise had to do with the difference between Maryland and West Virginia commitments. First, it should be noted that none of the Maryland people I spoke with held any animosity towards the WV decision makers and vice-versa. They felt what WV schools had to do was logical. The bottom line is that WV schools were trying to hold commitments with the AMAC, their regional state teams and the PVC. Which led to them only committing to playing the Maryland AMAC schools once in every sport. Even then there was no guarantee. We saw a case last spring when Frankfort and Alco were to open the baseball season only to have the game cancelled due to weather. The game could not be made up because of other commitments, Frankfort won the AMAC in baseball but never played Alco. So it really made no sense to even have a league other than for ease of scheduling. Again, I have to stress that the Maryland folks all agree that it was impossible to expect WV schools to commit to the AMAC. No hard feeling did I sense.

This doesn't mean former AMAC schools such as Frankfort, Keyser and Hampshire will not play the other former AMAC schools in sports. In fact, I anticipate they will certainly play each other. It just won't be under the commitment of a league.

Through that it looks like the Allegany and Garrett County public schools will form a league (call it the old WMIL if you will). Allegany, Fort Hill, Mountain Ridge, Northern and Southern will continue to play twice in all sports -- not football of course. But the AMAC football league dissolved over a decade ago.

End of the City League
The Allegany County schools are not committed to playing BW in basketball after this season. I also get that BW Coach Prete is not really interested in playing a local schedule either. Even though I have never spoken with Coach Prete, that is what I took away from conversations with other coaches. That is when the idea came up for BW to form two basketball teams...a traveling Team A and a local Team B. However, the MPSSAA will not sanction two teams from one school. Despite not being a MPSSAA school, they still have to be sanctioned by the MPSSAA to compete against other member schools. I did get from the other county schools that the ability for BW to recruit the top tier local kids is a major concern. It definitely fueled the wish to not play BW in hoops any further.

As for what BW decides to do from here I have no idea. Maybe a few posters at this forum have more insight. I would think they at least entertain ideas like joining the BCL and building a really killer national schedule.I suspect their ability to get home games will be at the forefront of decision making.

 

[beall02]

The AMAC being done is long overdue. I never liked the rule that even if you played a school twice, the result of the first game between the schools would count towards their AMAC record, didnt really make sense. I liked the WMIL when it was around. It made sense. You will never get a conference together for football between these schools. It would be nice if they could get the Washington County 1A/2A schools to join a conference together. 2 Garrett Co., 3 Allegany Co., 5 Washington Co. would be nice.

 

[cumbfanatic]

Great information. Thank you. I don’t see BW joining the BCL because that would be a lot of traveling twice a week, but I guess they could.

 

[TDHelmick]

Great information. Thank you. I don’t see BW joining the BCL because that would be a lot of traveling twice a week, but I guess they could.

The dilemma I see is that if you take the local teams off the BW schedule, they only had two home games this past season (Goretti and Mercersburg) and the Bob Kirk tourney. Getting teams to travel here in the winter won't be easy. It will definitely be a traveling team.

 

[beall02]

The dilemma I see is that if you take the local teams off the BW schedule, they only had two home games this past season (Goretti and Mercersburg) and the Bob Kirk tourney. Getting teams to travel here in the winter won't be easy. It will definitely be a traveling team.

I would think that joining the BCL would be a good thing for BW. Assuming that would force some of the schools in that league to give BW home games right? I dont exactly know how league play works in that league.

 

[cumbfanatic]

I believe they all play each other twice, a home and away.

 

[loco09]

No real surprise as the writing has been on wall for several years with the WV schools. I think adding a few Washington County schools to the league would be an ideal situation but unlikely to happen. Even if you just added Boonsboro and Smithsburg that league would be pretty solid in all sports other than football, which it wouldn't be for anyway.

As for BW again we've talked before how the local schools will most likely drop off. I wouldn't be shocked if Southern would stay on there, not sure what they lose to graduation. BW people have said they haven't talked about joining the BCL but it would be a good option, honestly though it wouldn't surprise me if the BCL dissolves soon since the MIAA is there too. I think part of BWs struggle in getting many home games last year was simply because it was a new program and other teams don't want to commit to a far off road game if they aren't sure it's worth playing. I look for them to play an independent schedule next year, a bunch of tournament games or events along with some additional good home games, there all some quality programs not far away in parts of PA, OH, even one or two in WV that they could get some games.

 

[beall02]

No real surprise as the writing has been on wall for several years with the WV schools. I think adding a few Washington County schools to the league would be an ideal situation but unlikely to happen. Even if you just added Boonsboro and Smithsburg that league would be pretty solid in all sports other than football, which it wouldn't be for anyway.

As for BW again we've talked before how the local schools will most likely drop off. I wouldn't be shocked if Southern would stay on there, not sure what they lose to graduation. BW people have said they haven't talked about joining the BCL but it would be a good option, honestly though it wouldn't surprise me if the BCL dissolves soon since the MIAA is there too. I think part of BWs struggle in getting many home games last year was simply because it was a new program and other teams don't want to commit to a far off road game if they aren't sure it's worth playing. I look for them to play an independent schedule next year, a bunch of tournament games or events along with some additional good home games, there all some quality programs not far away in parts of PA, OH, even one or two in WV that they could get some games.

I think if you were to add Boonsboro, Smithsburg, Williamsport, Clear Spring and Hancock you could have a good league. I could see why Clear Spring and Hancock wouldn't want to join the league. You could put Hancock, Clear Spring, Northern and Southern in one division and have Mountain Ridge, Allegany, Fort Hill, Boonsboro, Smithsburg, and Williamsport in a second division.

Washington County schools don't have a problem filling a schedule for the most part. They can pull from their area, outskirts of Baltimore Metro (Carroll, Howard, Montgomery, and Frederick counties), Southern PA, Panhandle of WV, Northwestern VA before even getting to the Allegany and Garrett County teams.

 

[BoyznBlue]

End of the City League
The Allegany County schools are not committed to playing BW in basketball after this season. I also get that BW Coach Prete is not really interested in playing a local schedule either. Even though I have never spoken with Coach Prete, that is what I took away from conversations with other coaches. That is when the idea came up for BW to form two basketball teams...a traveling Team A and a local Team B. However, the MPSSAA will not sanction two teams from one school. Despite not being a MPSSAA school, they still have to be sanctioned by the MPSSAA to compete against other member schools. I did get from the other county schools that the ability for BW to recruit the top tier local kids is a major concern. It definitely fueled the wish to not play BW in hoops any further.

As for what BW decides to do from here I have no idea. Maybe a few posters at this forum have more insight. I would think they at least entertain ideas like joining the BCL and building a really killer national schedule.I suspect their ability to get home games will be at the forefront of decision making.

This is true. I'm not sure if he has made this statement in public but he has in private conversations. I haven't heard this from any source but I think BW will play a totally independent schedule - not unusual for a private school, especially a school with the ambitions that BW has.

 

[OneRing]

This isn't the first time that the City League wasn't around. Toby Eirich refused to play BW for his last few years at Allegany. If I remember it correctly, it had to do with a player transferring. Didn't come back until Tedd took over and he played BW.
While I've never been big on having an All-City team with just three schools (even when we were a much bigger city), it was still something nice for the players.