The Heart of Iowa Conference is hoping to stay viable with the addition of a few new schools in the coming years.
Colfax-Mingo left the conference to join the South Iowa Cedar League three years ago. CMB’s athletic sharing agreement expired, forcing those two programs to look for a Class 1A-based conference.
In a few years down the road, 3A Gilbert is leaving the HOIC for the Raccoon River Conference.
After the Tigers jump ship, the HOIC will have only seven schools. Prairie City-Monroe High School Principal and softball coach Scott Bridges recently presented to his school board what the plans of the HOIC are moving forward and he filled me in on those plans Wednesday.
“There isn’t really a lot of news yet,” Bridges said. “We have sent information out to a lot of schools and some schools have said they are interested. No one has told us yet that they are for sure coming to our conference.”
Bridges said the three schools who have shown the most interest in potentially leaving their conferences to come to the HOIC are West Marshall, Van Meter and Des Moines Christian.
Bridges added that plenty of other schools have been contacted, but he is unsure of how much interest those schools have. That list of schools includes, Woodward-Granger, East Marshall, South Hardin, Ballard, Perry and Boone.
West Marshall, East Marshall and South Hardin are all part of the North Iowa Cedar League’s West Division. West Marshall has played in the HOIC before.
Van Meter, Des Moines Christian and Woodward-Granger currently all play together in the West Central Activities Conference and Boone, Ballard and Perry all play with each other in the Raccoon River Conference.
“This still has a long ways to go,” Bridges said. “Even if a school has interest, they would then have to present it to their board, and it’s a long process from there.”
Bridges said PCM has no interest in leaving the HOIC. The school likes where it is. The goal now is to help build the conference to make it more viable moving forward.
The HOIC would like to add as many teams as they can, but Bridges said getting to at least eight is the first step. If they can build the league to 14-15 teams, they might consider splitting the league into two divisions. Bridges doesn’t think the conference can go to divisions with only 10 or 12 schools though.
“We are going to have to drive no matter who we add because there are not a lot of schools our size close to us,” Bridges said. “We are hoping to help grow this league to allow it to stay around for a long time.”
The last time the HOIC had two divisions was back in the 2010-11 calendar year. PCM was in the large division back then along with current members North Polk, Gilbert, Nevada and Greene County as well as Bondurant-Farrar.
The small side that season included CMB, Colfax-Mingo, Roland-Story, South Hamilton and Grandview Park Baptist.
In area action, Tuesday was a big night of hoops for the Colfax-Mingo basketball teams.
In the first game, junior Payton Rhone did something no other Tigerhawk female has done in at least the past 12 seasons. She put in 30 points, hitting eight 3-pointers, in a win against HLV.
Then, senior Jarod Nichols went over 1,000 career points in the boys’ game and set a new school record for career rebounds as well. Nichols is only the fifth player to breach the 1,000-point mark. He is 75 points away from passing Jeff Lindsay for fourth on the school’s all-time scoring list.
Thursday could be another big night for area wrestling programs.
Prairie City-Monroe is hosting Saydel and Collins-Maxwell for a triangular, and the Mustangs are closing in on another HOIC dual title. And junior Wes Cummings has 99 career victories.
Colfax-Mingo is wrestling in a quadrangular at Lynnville-Sully. The next dual win for the Tigerhawks will set a new school record. They are currently 23-1.
Lynnville-Sully also has a pair of wrestlers who are sitting at 99 career wins, too. The next wins for seniors Sage Zylstra and Cayden Johnson will be their 100th.
Contact Troy Hyde
at thyde@newtondailynews.com