MARCH 20, 2020, KEIZERTIMES, PAGE C5
MVC,
continued from Page C1
After going 10-2 in 2016
and 9-2 in 2017, Sprague
designated themselves as av-
erage-plus at the scheduling
meeting in 2018. McNary
did the same after going 7-4
in 2017 and earning a playoff
win over Grants Pass.
However, both programs
didn’t account for how other
coaches would identify their
own teams.
According to Gragg, who
is the chairman for MVC
football, only three teams in
the state identifi ed themselves
as tough, which made it ex-
tremely diffi cult for schedul-
ing — especially for athletic
directors in the valley, who
were already dealing with the
fact that they had to sched-
ule fi ve non-league games in
each of the next two years
instead of just one per season,
like they were accustomed to
from 2014-17.
“The state has six teams
that are in the top 10 every
single year, and so for those
teams not to identify as tough,
it makes scheduling more
challenging,” Gragg said. “It
should be balanced, but if no-
body’s identifying as tough,
there will be some mismatch-
es.”
McNary and Sprague ex-
perienced some of those mis-
matches fi rsthand.
Sprague has lost all 10 of
their non-conference match-
ups over the last two seasons
and experienced some partic-
ularly lopsided losses against
6A powers Tigard and Central
Catholic in 2019.
McNary has also lost all 10
of their non-league contests
since the MVC was formed
— with an average margin of
defeat of more than 30 points
per game.
However, what was really
telling from McNary’s per-
spective is that after starting
each of the last two seasons
0-5, the Celtics rallied to win
all four of their conference
games in 2018 and 2019 and
were back-to-back league
champions.
“When a team like Mc-
Nary goes 0-5 in non-league,
4-0 in league play and then is
fi nished after the fi rst week
of the playoffs, clearly there’s
something that needs to be
adjusted. When you see it
happen the fi rst time, it might
be an outlier, but after the
second year of that happen-
ing, something has to change,”
Gragg said.
Some of the other con-
cerns athletic directors had
was that playing a four-game
league schedule took away
some natural rivalries and
made it harder for coaches to
vote on all-league players.
Since all the athletic direc-
tors in the conference were
on the same page, it made it
easy for Gragg to advocate for
a six-game league schedule to
the chairman of 6A football,
Alan Boschma, the athletic di-
rector at Tigard.
“Everyone wants to be
competitive at the state level,
and one of the components
of being successful at the state
level is making sure you’re
vibrant and making sure you
are building a program that’s
competitive in your confer-
ence and I think this schedule
allows us to do that,” Gragg
said. “I’m happy with this
process. When you only have
to fi nd three games for our
league, that also means that
other leagues will only have
to fi nd three games, so it will
make it easier for everyone.”
Under the new format,
each Salem-Keizer team will
take a trip over the moun-
tain three times in the next
two years. McNary will visit
Mountain View this season
and then travel to Bend and
Summit next year.
“If you’re going to be a
playoff team, you have to be
able to go on the road. I don’t
know why people complain
about going over to Bend. I
think it will be good for us,”
McNary head coach Jeff Au-
vinen said.
Although the four-game
league
schedule
seemed
to benefi t McNary during
league competition, Auvin-
en is more than happy to be
returning to a typical confer-
ence schedule.
“This is the way it should
be. It makes our out-of-con-
ference schedule a lot more
manageable, plus it will give
our teams the chance to re-
build natural rivalries. It’s the
File
McNary’s Ethan Martin was a fi rst-team all-league kick returner
last season.
protecting lives, property
and the environment
SUNDAY, MAY 10
Mother’s Day Breakfast
TUESDAY, AUG 4
National Night Out
FRIDAY, SEP 11
9 /11 Ceremony
MONDAY, OCT 5
Fire Prevention Week
Open House
SUNDAY, DEC 13
Santa Breakfast
SATURDAY, DEC 19
Candy Cane Day
•
www.keizerfi re.com
503.390.9111
Facebook.com/KeizerFireDistrict
right way to go,” Auvinen said.
Gragg added: “I’m very
appreciative of Jeff and his
staff that made the best of a
diffi cult and challenging non-
league schedule. It was a chal-
lenging couple of years, but
we learned a lot.”