by Missy Thompson

STAFF WRITER

The alignment for 2009-13 was finalized yesterday by the Utah High School Activities Association determining where Utah's high schools will fall within classification and region. Much of the decisions were made based on geography so schools were clustered together because of their classification and location.

Tooele and Stansbury high schools will both be placed in 4A beginning in the fall of 2009 in Region 6. They will compete against Bountiful, East, Highland, Olympus, Woods Cross and -- for non-sports only -- Salt Lake Performing Arts.

Grantsville High School will keep three of its foes from Region 11 -- Ben Lomond, Bear River and Morgan -- which they've seen in 3A competition over the last few years. Private Catholic schools Juan Diego and Judge Memorial will join the four other schools to complete Region 10.

Dugway and Wendover will also stay in the same region -- 21 -- in 1A classification with Eskdale (which is non-sport), Liahona, Meridian, Tintic, Wasatch Academy and West Desert.

One of the main reasons for putting Tooele and Stansbury together is simply the cost of fuel and travel time. Tooele has been traveling to Utah County for Region 7 this past school year and will have to keep making the long drive in the fall.

"Fuel is a huge deal," said Dave Wilkey, assistant director of the UHSAA. "Every time we've done realignment we focus on fuel costs, even more so this time."

Wilkey said they take into consideration when deciding the regions all expenses, not just gas prices. But this did "drive a lot of the conversation," he said.

Although Tooele will shrink in size with Stansbury opening in 2009, THS athletic director Richard Valdez believes this region will be better than the one Tooele is in currently.

"It's a lot less traveling and more competitive," Valdez said. "Splitting Stansbury and Tooele, it might water us down a bit. Based on the boundaries we might be a little out for a year or two. I think enrollment is still going to climb."

One thing Valdez is sure of is the rivalry that will ensue between the two schools.

"I think Stansbury, being brand new and our neighbors, it could be a great rivalry," he said. "Ten years down the road we will be similar to the rivalries like East/West and Timpview/Provo. It's definitely competitive."

He added that there will be kids attending Tooele who have to make the switch over to Stansbury based on the boundaries.

"There will be little brothers and sisters at Stansbury with older siblings at Tooele," Valdez said. "I think what they're talking about is giving Tooele seniors the option to go to Stansbury or stay at Tooele."

Several years ago, when Tooele was in 4A before being bumped down to 3A, they were in the same region as East, Highland and Olympus. In the '90s they also competed against Woods Cross and Bountiful in region play.

"We've competed against them before and we'll do it again," he said.

Valdez thinks Tooele can hold their own in the new region and wasn't surprised by the final realignment from the UHSAA.

"It's as far as they could have done it," he said. "They couldn't please everyone, but for Tooele it's as good as we're going to get."

Grantsville High School athletic director Pat Ciervo wasn't aware of where the Cowboys stood in the realignment until he was contacted by the Transcript-Bulletin.

"It'll be an interesting alignment," Ciervo said after hearing GHS will be battling Juan Diego and Judge. "I'm a little surprised, but not totally with Juan Diego and Judge being in the same region. There's a whole lot of good teams in [Region 10]."

Grantsville's rivalries don't end with Tooele, according to Ciervo there has been a long-standing, healthy rivalry between the Cowboys and Morgan Trojans.

"A big rivalry with football is Morgan, that's a tremendous rivalry," Ciervo said.

He added that the rivalries in volleyball and basketball are huge too.

"By keeping Morgan in the same region as Grantsville, it's healthy," he said. "I like that combination and I enjoy playing them. Even though we're rivals we have a good relationship. We can smile and shake hands and be friends after the game."

Grantsville is in the same situation as Tooele as they will also be losing students and athletes when Stansbury opens. However, not all of the sports will be impacted, but for the most part they'll lose the same number of players across the board in each sport.

Ciervo also understands the need to eliminate drive time and reduce fuel use as much as possible. In Reading, Pa. where Ciervo is from, the high schools there would play each other no matter what size school they were.

"Me driving up to Bear River or Logan consistently, that's like me traveling well past Harrisburg, [Pa.]," he said. "When I got here and found out how far we had to drive, I had to get used to that. I feel bad for Wendover and Dugway because they have to drive forever."

Although the Cowboys will still have to drive to northern Utah to play Bear River, they are the closest schools -- next to Ben Lomond and Morgan -- to the Bears in 3A.

"That's the demographics of Utah," Wilkey said. "You've got some 4A schools up in northern Utah. So Ben Lomond and Bear River, who are they going to play? We're trying to cluster them in groupings so we minimize as much travel as we can."

A similar thing happened with the alignment in southern Utah where Dixie, Pine View, Snow Canyon, Tuacahn, Canyon View, Cedar City, Desert Hills and Hurricane are a mixed 3A and 4A in Region 9. There was also very little the UHSAA could do about the 1A schools.

"They're more spread out than anybody," Wilkey said. "They go from top to bottom in the state."

Dugway and Wendover are used to their competitors as the alignment did not affect their region except moving them from Region 18 to 21.

missy@tooeletranscript.com