Early start causing conflicts

By Jared Harmon

Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008 | 12:26 a.m.

The exponential growth of high schools in Southern Nevada has left schedule makers at the Clark County School District with limited options for booking games each winter.

As a result, league play for the state's 4A classification started uncharacteristically early for the winter sports season on Dec. 15 and coaches are complaining that doesn't give them enough time to evaluate their teams.

In the past, the winter season that begins with games in late November would allow teams to ease into the schedule with a number of preseason, non-league matchups before beginning league games in January after the winter break. During the break, coaches could schedule tournaments to add more evaluation time.

But with 32 schools in Southern Nevada's 4A classification, league play has started to creep earlier into the season. In girls soccer, for instance, schools only get two games before the start of league competition.

"It's really very odd," said Joel Parks, Green Valley High's girls soccer coach. "Any time we can get more prep time with our teams is absolutely going to be beneficial. Especially this season — because we lost 13 seniors. We're very young, but we just don't have time to really prepare some of the new girls."

Ray Mathis, the School District's executive director of instructional support and student activities, said the valley's growth has necessitated the expansion of league play. Because the winter season can't spill over into the spring, and in order to fit the 12 to 16 league games that each team must have, league play must begin even sooner.

"I know ideally coaches want all of December to prepare and then come back in January to start league play, but we can't have that," Mathis said. "From a scheduling standpoint, we just can't cram 16 games for every team into January. We have limited buses and officials, so it's just not possible."

The winter season is affected most by the growth because the School District does not schedule games during the winter break, which runs from Dec. 19 to Jan. 5.

Basic's girls basketball coach Teresa Gallegos said she understood the scheduling woes but echoed Parks' sentiments as the Wolves also have a young team looking to gain experience. Gallegos has noticed the preseason gradually shrink and thinks athletes are being pushed into meaningful league games too early.

"(Early league play) is going to hurt us this year," Gallegos said. "We have some young players and we're going to have to rush through some things because it's become a time issue. We have to decide what we can afford to spend time on. It's really put a big emphasis on tournament games for us."

Jared Harmon can be reached at 990-8922 or [email protected].