COLUMBIA – The Sullivan Eagles high school football team and coach Pat Burke will face a new challenge for the next two seasons. Football district assignments for the next classification cycle were released Friday (Jan. 29) by the Missouri State High School Activities Association, aligning schools for round-robin district play for the 2010 and 2011 football seasons. With an enrollment of 729 students, Sullivan will now make the move from Class 3 to Class 4. Only Smithville and Miller Career Academy, with enrollments of 727 students, are considered smaller than Sullivan in Class 4.
In 11-man football, the largest 32 schools based on student enrollment in grades 9-12 are classified in Class 6 (1792 – 2979 students), while the smallest 64 schools are assigned to Class 1 (97 – 244 students). The next-largest 64 schools are then classified in Class 2 (248 – 428 students), the next 64 in Class 3 (429 – 717 students), and the next 64 in Class 4 (725 – 1246 students). The remaining schools are assigned to Class 5 (1249 – 1786 students).
District play for all four-team districts will begin in Week 8 (Oct15) of the 2010 regular season. Sullivan has been assigned to District 9 along with fellow Four Rivers Conference (FRC) members Pacific (1084 students), St. Clair (814 students) and Union (952 students). The Eagles will play at Union (Oct 15) and will host St. Clair (Oct 22) and Pacific (Oct 29).
St. Francis Borgia will also make the move to Class 4. The Knights have been assigned to District 8 along with St. Charles West, St. Dominic and Warrenton. While having only 554 actual student, Borgia is affected by the member-approved multiplier rule (actual enrollment times 1.33) which is used in calculating enrollment of private institutions. That calculation places St. Francis Borgia at 739 students.
FRC members Owensville and St. James will remain in Class 3 District 7 along with Salem and Osage while Hermann is assigned to Class 2 District 9 with Blair Oaks, Montgomery County and South Callaway.Other area football playing schools include Cuba, who was placed in Class 2 District 5 with Houston, Liberty (Mountain View) and Willow Springs. Rolla was placed in Class 5 District 6 with Camdenton, Sedalia Smith-Cotton and Waynesville. Former FRC member Washington was placed in Class 5 District 5 with Kirkwood, Parkway West and Vianney.
“We’ve known for a few weeks that we were going to be borderline between Class 3 and 4”, said Burke. “We were either going to be one of the largest in 3 or one of the smallest in 4. Now we have our work cut out for us. I’ve met with the kids and we’ll get to work. I always told myself that someday I wanted one of my teams to have a chance to play a top-notch team like a Webb City and hopefully we can make that happen.”
The first-allowable practice date for 2010 will be on Monday, August 9. The preseason interscholastic scrimmages will take place August 20-21, and the first-possible contest date will be Friday, August 27. Sullivan will open the season in 2010 with a FRC road contest at Hermann on Friday, August 27. Week two (Sept 3) the Eagles will host Owensville.
The Eagles will then play four consecutive non-conference games starting with two home games against DeSoto (Sept 10) and Hillsboro (Sept 17). Road games against Festus (Sept 24) and Borgia (Oct 1) along with a FRC road contest at St. James (Oct 8) will be played before the final three conference / district games. The 2010 and 2011 seasons conclude with the annual MSHSAA Show-Me Bowl at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis. The state championship dates for 2010 are November 26-27, while the event will be held November 25-26 in 2011.
(Marty Tiefenbrunn can be reached at 860-NEWS or by e-mail at
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