By Michael Carman
Peninsula Daily News
SEQUIM — The Sequim football team knows its headed to the Class 2A state tournament, but some of the crucial details — opponent, venue, date and time will be decided today.
That’s due to a change in how the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association (WIAA) seeds the state football tournaments.
Instead of relying on district seeding to create matchups, a human element in the form of three 12-member football seeding committees for Class 1B/2B, 1A/2A and 3A/4A has been implemented on a trial basis for 2018.
Teams will be seeded 1-16, with the top eight seeds hosting games (No. 1 vs. 16, No. 2 vs. 15 etc…)
Each committee has 12 members, with Ryland Spencer of Cascadia Preps and Scott Odiorne of Score Czar Rankings participating on all three.
The 1A/2A committee is made up of Elia Ala’ilima-Daley, principal and former head coach and athletic director at Cascade (Leavenworth); Pat Alexander, a longtime assistant coach (retired) for Tumwater; and head coaches Brycen Bye of Clarkston; Jay Dodd of Blaine; John Hallead of White Salmon; Cody Lamb of La Salle; Shawn Perkins of Mark Morris; Dan Teeter of Lakewood; Jeff Weible of North Kitsap and Jim Wright of Sultan.
Sequim in the middle
Weible is the only coach of a team still alive in the 2A tournament, potentially creating a conflict of interest if he advocates for his Vikings to supplant Sequim in the seeding.
“I would assume he wouldn’t do that,” Wolves coach Erik Wiker said.
“I don’t think he can go in and say, ‘We’re better than Sequim because we should have beat them, so we should be ranked higher.’ And they go, Oh, OK.’
“It’s their first year, I’m sure it will get better [with practice], but I would assume there are protocols to follow. Coaches, if they are coaching in state, probably shouldn’t be a part of that [assigning seeds if they have any potential conflict of interest].”
At 9-1 with an Olympic League championship and wins over two state teams (North Kitsap and Washington), Wiker thinks Sequim will be seeded “somewhere in the middle.”
“We aren’t going to be a bottom five team [seeds 11-16], we are league champs, we are 9-1, we didn’t play great at the end, but we’ve done enough,” Wiker said.
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Sports reporter Michael Carman can be contacted at 360-417-3525 or mcarman@peninsuladailynews.com.
