Uniontown returns to 11-man football

Uniontown will be back in the ranks of 11-man football the next two seasons following the Kansas State High School Activities Association's release of enrollment figures Friday morning.

There were two sets of numbers released. The first set determines the classifications for this school year in every sport except football and uses enrollments in grades 9-12. The other is for football for the 2016 and 2017 seasons and does not use the 12th grade in its figures.

Uniontown had already made the decision to return to 11-man football and it would have been mandated anyway, as the school's head count of 113 puts it 13 students above the cutoff for eligibility to play eight-man football. Uniontown's first season of eight-man football was 2012.

Uniontown will be one of 35 schools playing in Class 2-1A in the next two seasons. Due to this odd number of teams, there will be some districts that have five schools instead of four.

There will be four Three Rivers League schools at the 11-man level when Uniontown changes next season. Northeast and Jayhawk-Linn will remain Class 3A schools while Oswego, despite reporting only 80 students, will remain in Class 2-1A. When the current football cycle was announced in 2013, Oswego had exactly 100 students.

Of the 35 schools in Class 2-1A, 17 have an enrollment of 99 or fewer, meaning they could have chosen to play eight-man football but decided against it. With 63 students, LaCrosse is the smalllest 11-man school in Kansas.

Uniontown was the only TRL school to report more students this time than the last time the count was taken for football. Jayhawk-Linn's count remained the same, 124, and every other school has fewer students.

Marmaton Valley and St. Paul will remain in Eight-Man Division I while Altoona-Midway, Chetopa and Crest will be joined by Pleasanton in Eight-Man Division II. Pleasanton reported 23 fewer students than it did in the previous cycle when it was assigned to Eight-Man Division I.

Some area schools that could be placed in a district with Uniontown include Oswego, Colgan (down from 3A), Lyndon, Olpe and Yates Center.

None of the schools in the Southeast Kansas League change classes. Pittsburg remains in Class 5A, Parsons in 4A-Division II and all the others in 4A-Division I.

Baldwin and Topeka Hayden have both been moved down to Class 4A-Division II. Moving up to take their places are Andale and Wamego. Also, Kansas City-Sumner moves up to Class 5A and will be replaced by Maize South.

There are no changes for SEK or TRL schools in the classifications for all other sports. Fort Scott's student count for these sports was 551 students, one more than last year. Pittsburg reports 886 students, 72 more than last season. Coffeyville is the only other SEK school with an increase. Its count of 478 is 23 more than last season.

Uniontown reports 141 students for the regular head count, nine more than last year. It's among the larger schools in Class 2A.

Changes in 4A have Bonner Springs going up to 5A with Andover Central coming down. Burlington, Haven, Kingman and Wichita Collegiate move up from 3A. Hays Thomas More Prep, Hoyt-Royal Valley, Larned and Perry-Lecompton move down to 3A.

In 2A, Hillsboro and Horton come down from 3A with Eskridge-Mission Valley and Syracuse going up. Kinsley, Onaga, Peabody and Wakefield move down to 1A with Blue Rapids-Valley Heights, Macksville, Pratt-Skyline and St. Francis coming up.