Section VI approves going from a Federation format to league alignment for football

By Mike Wertman, Sports Writer Posted 6 January 2020 at 12:59 pm

Section VI has given approval to switch from a Federation to a league alignment for football beginning this fall.

“A proposal has passed which will allow individual leagues to now align their divisions and schedule as they see fit,” said Section VI Football Chairman Ken Stoldt who added that “the Federation will remain intact and oversee all aspects of Section VI Football as they have in the past with a few exceptions. A new Point Rating Index (PRI) will be used for seeding (for sectionals)”

“Leagues will now be responsible to align their divisions, create a regular season schedule, take care of schedule changes in season, and hold post season meetings,” added Stoldt. “Hopefully this is a good thing.  Both league scheduling and Federation scheduling offer great opportunities.  My hope is that by keeping things local it will spark more interest because of traditional match-ups and as a result we may even see better attendance at games.”

The vote clears the way for the Niagara-Orleans to have football as a league sport for the first time since the early 1970’s when the Section VI Football Federation was formed.

Currently six N-O schools compete in football including Albion, Medina, Roy-Hart, Akron, Newfane and Wilson.

Recently Medina approved to go back to playing football alone after competing as a merged team with Lyndonville and Barker the past few years.

In turn, Roy-Hart, which has been low on numbers and fielded only a varsity squad last fall, is in talks with Barker and Lyndonville about forming a merged team this coming fall to compete as either an 8 or 11 man team.