2 years later, realignment still stinks

The old field house stood empty Monday at Havelock High School. At what becomes the hub of the school’s athletic program every spring, no athletes met outside before practice; no coaches ushered them aboard buses for long road trips; cars weren’t crammed into every makeshift space available.

The sports year was, as of Monday, over.

When Havelock senior Jamar Frazier ran his final 800-meter race Saturday afternoon in the N.C. High School Athletic Association’s state track and field championship in Raleigh, the sun officially set on Havelock sports for 2002-03.

It was the end of a rough week.

Last Tuesday, the Rams’ girls soccer team lost out in the first round of the playoffs for the fourth straight year in a 2-0 defeat at Wilmington Hoggard. The same day, Havelock’s baseball team ended its surprisingly remarkable season with a 1-0 epic loss to Greenville Conley in the season finale, leaving Havelock out of the playoffs for the second straight year.

Friday, Conley did the same to the Rams softball team, knocking Havelock from the Big East 4-A Conference tournament with a hard-fought 3-0 win.

The boys golf and tennis teams went through the spring without a win between them.

Monday marked the first day of the entire school year without some sort of in-season athletic activity taking place on campus. It hasn’t been this quiet at the school since early August, when classes hadn’t yet started.

The reason for the early silence is obvious; Havelock’s placement into the 4-A ranks by the NCHSAA before the 2001-02 school year turned out to be devastating from a competitive standpoint.

Perhaps no teams illustrate the effects of realignment better than the Rams’ baseball and softball squads.

Two years ago, Havelock’s last in the Coastal 3-A Conference, both teams won league titles. The softball team ran through the league without a loss.

Last season in the Big East, neither team made the playoffs. The softball team finished third, while the baseball team was fourth.

This year, both teams cruised through the non-conference portions of their schedules. The softball team started the season 7-1 before running into the league’s top two teams, both from Greenville; the baseball team came out with a blazing 15-1 start, turning heads all over the state.

The softball team finished fourth with a 12-10 overall record and a 4-6 record in the Big East. The baseball team lost its last five games — including four to Greenville teams — to finish at 15-6 and 5-5, good for third and a trip home for the postseason.

Greenville Rose, the baseball champion, has 1,687 students according to the NCHSAA’s latest figures. Conley, the softball champ, has 1,437. Havelock, with 1,251 students, is smaller than 25 3-A schools.

Halfway through the four-year realignment period, the situation still stinks. With the exception of wrestling, no Havelock team this year had great success, and it’s because the schools the Rams play have so many more students from which to choose athletes.

Hey, here’s an idea: If the ACC wants a couple of Big East teams, how about Rose and Conley?