New alignment adds challenges to playoffs

By Aidan Oakes Staff Writer

Every two years, UIL changes the district alignments.

Some years, the realignment can result in schools playing a seemingly random assortment of teams from throughout Texas.

“Last realignment, (the football team) was going to Santa Fe and Texas City, but also Port Neches Groves and Nederland,” football coach and athletic director Clayton Maple said.

The latest redistricting in 2022 placed Kingwood Park in District 16 and Region 2, meaning teams would have to travel farther than before for playoff games. Additionally, this also meant they would play Dallas-area schools in the opening rounds of the playoffs instead of Houstonarea schools.

Girls soccer and softball are the only two teams to make it past the first round of the playoffs in the newer region. Both were eliminated in the second round, compared to a year ago where four teams won a combined total of nine playoff games.

“We’ve missed a lot more school than we’ve had to in the past,” girls soccer coach Jess White said. “We did over 700 miles of travel for two playoff games.”

In addition to players missing a lot of class time to travel, long playoff trips also make it difficult for some parents to see their kid play. A team doing this much playoff traveling comes with a big downside for the parents trying to make it to their kid’s game.

“It does take its toll,” White said. “Families may want to attend games and that adds transportation costs.”

Coaches will have one more year in their current district, which only includes six teams.

The next alignment will come in a year, and coaches are eager to see where UIL places Kingwood Park for the 2024-2026 seasons.

“It’s almost like March Madness,” Maple said. “Before realignment, everybody starts making their predictions.”

The coaches guess where they may land by how they compare to other schools on things like enrollment size. Each year teams are either bumped up to 6A or dropped down to 5A depending on how many students they have enrolled. That helps coaches exclude some teams as they guess who

Kingwood Park might be aligned with, but the rest is just speculation among themselves.

“How the UIL does it?” Maple said. “I don’t know. It’s like a big secret that never gets leaked to us coaches.”

With one more year of long road trips ahead, the coaches at least hope for shorter drives and more district opponents.

“I would like to see maybe a slightly bigger district, you know, maybe like eight teams I think would be perfect,” White said.