WHEELING — Coming into this school year, the West Virginia Secondary Schools Activities Commission made a change– schools in class AAAA, only fully implemented as a new classification last year, would now be divided into two regions, north and south, instead of the old four-region format that Classes A through AAA are still using.

Wheeling Park, the lone Class AAAA school in the northern panhandle, found themselves in the new North Region with Morgantown, Preston, University, Washington, Hedgesville, Martinsburg, Spring Mills, Jefferson and Musselman. The South Region is composed of George Washington, Riverside Oak Hill, Woodrow Wilson, Buckhannon Upshur, Cabell Midland, Huntington, Hurricane, Parkersburg and Parkersburg South.

Last year, 16 schools were in Class AAAA. This time around, in the second year of the new classification system, 20 schools are in Class AAAA– though that number still makes for the smallest Class by a fair margin.

“Quad-A, by our new classification system, which was approved by our board of directors, only put 20 teams in quad-A– we had several proposals brought forth to us as we looked at structuring– and there was no need for sectionals any longer with such few schools,” WVSSAC Executive Director Wayne Ryan said in an interview Friday. “And when you looked at regional alignment, there were also going to be very few schools with the geography of our state being as it is.”

“One of the proposals had 10 schools that would be put in the north and 10 in the south. And basically, after many different groups, coaches, committees, our office staff, board of directors, they all vetted that, they felt that was the best procedure to go with for quad-A sports. It’s for all sports in Quad-A with the exception of football, which works by the grading system.”

The change to two regions makes for quite expansive groupings of schools, but Wheeling Park athletic director and head football coach Chris Daugherty believes it was the best solution.

“Obviously there’s only 20 schools in 4A,” Daugherty said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s the biggest schools in the state of West Virginia. And when you look at that, geographically, you have a decent amount in southern West Virginia, and then you have a couple in the center of the state- but for the most part, you have the north, which would be Morgantown, University, ourselves- and then the Eastern Panhandle. So, they tried to do, I think, the best they could to divide those. And for the most part, they were able to do that.”

The on-paper changes are coming to fruition now, with the postseason in fall sports coming fast. Wheeling Park’s golf team, for example, is preparing to travel to Martinsburg, where the North Region golf regional is taking place on October 6. After winning the OVAC 5A golf championship last week, Park head golf coach Don Headley said that he was preparing his team for the unfamiliar territory by making the trek to Martinsburg beforehand for a kind of warm-up match. Wheeling Park ventured out to Locust Hill Golf Course, the same course where the Patriots will partake in the North Regional, on September 24, finishing in second as a team between Washington and Jefferson, two teams that Park will see once more come October 6.

With the four-class system only taking full effect last year, and encountering adversity in its initial year, the SSAC and its member schools are still evaluating the best way forward.

“It’s going to be looked at,” Ryan said. “The North-South format is going to be studied, whether it would apply to some other sports. Obviously it wouldn’t be just 10, but, does the North-South format also work moving forward for, potentially, some other sports? That’s going to be evaluated during the process.”

“It’s always open for consideration, but it’s a tough task when you have fewer schools and more classifications. We take a lot of input from a lot of entities and try to come up with the very best proposal that we could.”

Last year, the fallout of the new four-class system made its way to courtrooms around the state, leading to the postponement of the SSAC football playoffs. But with those troubles in the rearview, there seems to be a bit more optimism moving forward.

“I think they’re looking at things sport by sport and trying to decide, you know, how are we going to run the 4A region compared to, say, the AA region?” Daugherty said. “And we’re starting to get some clarity.”

When it comes to this year’s golf postseason, the two-region Class AAAA format is not all that will be new. With the sport being split into four classes, there will now be 160 golfers taking part in this season’s state golf tournament, 40 more than last year, and the greatest number in the state’s history.

To add onto the newness, there is new technology been implemented by the SSAC to help their golfers, fans and media.

“We’ve started, along with another 34 states around our nation, doing digital scoring,” Jason Bankston, WVSSAC Director of Compliance and Eligibility, said. “Now our student athletes are allowed to use their cell phones to score digitally, and actually use their phones to check yardage too. A while back, the SSAC put a rule in effect that they could use range finders and things like that, and GPS monitors to find their range and find their distance. But now this app, we’re proud to be partnering with them this year, and it’s a great tool.”

The WVSSAC Golf app also allows users to view scores and leaderboards from SSAC events, including the upcoming regionals and state tournament.

Bankston said that the app passed a kind of ‘stress-test’ during the WVSSAC Women’s Invitational earlier this year, where 143 golfers used it.

“There was nothing but praise on the digital scoring this year,” Bankston said. “It’s even helping people in the media to get that access. It’s great for the parents, too, because parents can come off the golf course and, you know, they don’t have to struggle and figure out who’s in the lead, what hole they’re on, things like that.”

WVSSAC Golf is available on Google and Apple App Stores.

The SSAC State Golf Tournament will be played at Oglebay on October 14 and 15.