North Dakota Preps

will they be back up to AAA after their successful season.

No. Plain and simple.

Is this a joke? The Saints can barely keep their head above the water in AA. Sticking in AA is the best for the Saints, they barely can compete with most AA teams.

In my opinion, St. Mary's would be in the mix with Williston, Mandan, and Dickinson in the west if they had been AAA this year.

With Fargo Davies becoming the 13th team in AAA in two years, they will want an even number in the AAA division and St. Mary's might opt to play up. I know their coach Smrekar is old school and would love to see them compete in the top division. It's not ridiculous at all to suggest the idea that St. Mary's could move back up.

Bisonguy06 wrote:In my opinion, St. Mary's would be in the mix with Williston, Mandan, and Dickinson in the west if they had been AAA this year.

With Fargo Davies becoming the 13th team in AAA in two years, they will want an even number in the AAA division and St. Mary's might opt to play up. I know their coach Smrekar is old school and would love to see them compete in the top division. It's not ridiculous at all to suggest the idea that St. Mary's could move back up.

the thing is that st. marys enrollment has been going down steadily every year as of late...with their constant struggle in football the past 5-10 years kids who play football and are deciding between st. marys and one of the public schools in bismarck are going towards the public schools because they have a better opportunity to win there... IMO st.marys moving to AA in football was so they could compete and kids in the bismarck-mandan area would show more interest... i personally think that if they could go on a ten year run where they could win 3-5 state championships and be competing for one almost every year it would help enrollment in the school and then they may be able to transition back to AAA

St. Mary's, Shanley, and Wahpeton all moved down because the NDHSAA told them that they had to move. It was not a choice and they were told that they could not petition to stay up. This being said, St. Mary's will not play in AAA because NDHSAA will not let them.

I'm aware of all of that.

Again, I am saying that in one year, the NDHSAA might let them. Fargo Davies will join AAA in the east division and will give AAA 13 teams, an odd number. This doesn't work real well. If St. Mary's is allowed to opt back up, we'd have 14 teams and a balance between east and west.

Bisonguy06 wrote:In my opinion, St. Mary's would be in the mix with Williston, Mandan, and Dickinson in the west if they had been AAA this year.

With Fargo Davies becoming the 13th team in AAA in two years, they will want an even number in the AAA division and St. Mary's might opt to play up. I know their coach Smrekar is old school and would love to see them compete in the top division. It's not ridiculous at all to suggest the idea that St. Mary's could move back up.

St. Marys is the 4 seed in the west in AA this year. If they can barley make the playoffs in AA how can they compete in AAA?

I agree that St. Mary's would've been in the bottom half of the AAA west division this year. I don't think they would have gone winless. They'd be competitive with Williston, Mandan, and Dickinson in the west, Central, Jamestown, and Fargo North in the east.

The gap between AAA and AA is not that big. Fargo Shanley (AA) almost beat Grand Forks Red River (a AAA playoff team) this year. Wahpeton (AA) made the AAA playoffs last year.

The addition of Fargo Davies is going to force AAA to either add or subtract a team to keep an even number. St. Mary's moving up is just one of many possible solutions.

Bisonguy06 wrote:...The gap between AAA and AA is not that big. Fargo Shanley (AA) almost beat Grand Forks Red River (a AAA playoff team) this year. Wahpeton (AA) made the AAA playoffs last year.
...

Then why not move up the top of AA instead of cutting the number of teams in AAA?

St. Marys won't want to go back to maybe wining a game or two a year, hopefully make the 4th seed every so often just to get throttled by the east #1 seed. In AA they could routinely make the playoffs and in their good years contend.

I think they'd move another team down (Jamestown maybe?) before bringing up another team

they should and will stay down in AA
they belong in this class and were moved down so they could compete
now they are at least competeing with the teams instead of getting destroyed
they will stay down until there team gets way better or school population goes way up
and i don't see their school population going up very much any time soon