Antigo taking a hit from WIAA on tourney travel miles March 3, 2010 To the Antigo Journal:
The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association seems to have targeted Antigo High School with some injustices at tournament time.
The most absurd of them is sending the Antigo girls basketball team to Superior next Tuesday night for a regional tournament game. Superior is 227 miles from Antigo and the round trip makes it over 450 miles.
With the high cost of fuel, it's asking a lot for the team and fans to travel that far, not to mention well over four hours on the road.
When there is such a great distance between two schools, it would be much more practical to schedule games at a neutral site as close to half way as possible. That situation happened in Division 3 last year when Marathon and Three Lakes played at Antigo. Each team had about an equal distance to travel, Marathon from the west and Three Lakes from the north. That makes sense.
While there aren't many larger cities between Antigo and Superior, it would be more reasonable to play the game in Eau Claire or Chippewa Falls, which would cut about 100 miles from the trip, or 200 miles both ways.
The entire tournament setup in section 1 puts Antigo at a huge disadvantage for both the boys and girls teams.
Of the 14 schools in that sectional, Antigo has the smallest enrollment by far. Schools with enrollments much greater than Antigo include Superior, both Eau Claire schools, Memorial and North, Wausau West, D. C. Everest and Marshfield. The only schools with enrollments close to Antigo's are Merrill, Rhinelander and Wausau East.
With large school competition facing Antigo, the odds are stacked against the Red Robins on the tournament trail.
Vern Cahak
Antigo
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