SSHS in new blended conference

The Siloam Springs football team's path to the postseason is an easy one to follow: The Panthers must finish in the top six of the 6A-West Conference in order to secure a playoff berth.

For the majority of team sports at Siloam Springs this fall and next spring, it isn't nearly quite as simple.

In the regular seasons of volleyball, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball and softball, Siloam Springs will be competing in a blended 6A/5A Conference along with 6A schools Greenwood and Russellville and 5A schools Alma, Clarksville, Farmington and Harrison.

This seven-team league will be known as the 6A/5A -1 Conference. There are five other 6A/5A Conferences across the state.

Once the regular season is over, the 6A teams and 5A teams split into pre-assigned groups of their respective classifications and play in conference tournaments to determine which teams advance to the state tournaments.

For Siloam Springs it will group into an eight-team league called the 6A-West, which will include conference foes Greenwood and Russellville, 6A/5A-5 schools Benton and Sheridan, and 6A/5A-6 schools El Dorado, Lake Hamilton and Texarkana.

Coaches of each sport and athletic directors from each school will then meet to seed these teams 1 through 8 for a conference tournament to determine postseason eligibility.

"The seeding will be the most challenging part," said Siloam Springs athletics director Kevin Downing.

There are no set guidelines for the seeding, and it's likely that when the first meetings are held for volleyball in October, both coaches and athletic directors will learn a lot about the process when the seeding takes place.

"What we do for volleyball seeding is likely how we would continue for the rest of the year," Downing said.

The conference tournaments will be played a little differently than a typical postseason tournament.

Instead of all eight teams meeting in one location on three consecutive days for a tournament, the games will be held at the locations of the higher seed in the bracket.

For example, if No. 1 seed Siloam Springs plays No. 8 seed Sheridan in the opening round, Siloam Springs would host the game.

The first two teams that lose their first two games in the conference tournament are eliminated from postseason contention, leaving the top six that qualify for the state tournament.

The remaining six teams would continue on with the tournament to determine the rest of the seeding.

Games will be played in a Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday format.

For volleyball, the first round will be played Saturday, Oct. 15, followed by the second round on Tuesday, Oct. 18, and the third round on Saturday, Oct. 22.