Westfield football headed to Class 6A

It’s not really breaking news to report that Westfield is growing.

Anybody who’s been around the city knows how much bigger it’s gotten over the past two decades. But the effects of the growth are noteworthy, especially when it comes to the Westfield High School athletic programs – specifically football.

The IHSAA released its enrollment figures that will be used to determine the classes and sectional pairings for the 2017-18 and 2018-19 school years. Westfield is ranked 25th on the list with 2,146 students, up from 34th two years ago.

The top 32 schools will be placed in Class 6A for football, so that means the Shamrocks will be moving up a class. Westfield won the 5A state championship last fall.

The ‘Rocks had been in 5A since 2009. Now, during part of that time, 5A was the biggest football class, so Westfield was one of the big teams for a few years. The IHSAA introduced the 6A class in 2013, but that year the Shamrocks were 40th, so they would remain in 5A.

As recently as 1998, Westfield was a 2A school. The Shamrocks took a brief sojourn in 3A in 1999 and 2000, then moved up to 4A in 2001, remaining there for eight years. So growth is nothing new.

“We’ve know for a long time that we’d be going to 6A,” said Westfield head football coach Jake Gilbert. “We are ready for the new challenge.  It will be tough, but this past year we played seven teams that will be 6A next year and we scrimmage a few more over the summer.

“We’ve tried to do everything we can to get us ready for this move.  We have a long way to go, but our kids are working hard and we are excited to see where we stand in our new tournament.  Nothing will change in regards to our predominantly 6A conference or regular season.”

With Westfield’s move up to 6A, this means six of the seven Hoosier Crossroads Conference teams will now be part of the big class. The only 5A team left in the HCC is Zionsville, another school that is growing rapidly. The Eagles are 36th (up from 43rd) in this latest re-classification with 1928 students. But the No. 32 school, La Porte, has 1946 students, so Zionsville could be in 6A very soon.

But La Porte might not be 6A next season, due to another team moving up because of the IHSAA’s success factor. Fort Wayne Snider won the 2015 5A state title in 2015, then won a regional in 2016 before the ‘Rocks stopped them in the north semi-state. With four points for a state championship and two points for a regional plaque, Snider has six factor points, which requires them to move up a class.

As for other Hamilton County schools…

Carmel remains on top of the list, with an enrollment of 5,000 students. The next five are Ben Davis (4362), North Central (3772), Warren Central (3736) and Penn (3345). North Central moves back up to third this time around, after being behind Warren for the past several years.

Fishers moves up a couple notches to seventh in the latest report, with a total of 3250 students. That move actually pushes its sister school, Hamilton Southeastern, down a spot to ninth, with 3118. Noblesville remains 11th with an enrollment of 2882.

Guerin Catholic moves up four places to 141st with 758 students. Hamilton Heights also took a big jump, up 10 spots to 148th with 728 students.

Sheridan moved up two notches to 296th, with an enrollment of 329. Meanwhile, University made the biggest move of all the county schools, jumping 16 places to 310th with 289 students. That move could put the Trailblazers on the bubble of having some teams move up to 2A next fall.

The IHSAA will use these enrollment figures to set its classifications and release them to the public within the next couple weeks.