Rainmakers face decision time as BC High School Basketball redraws the division placements

Representation by way of population seems to be the guiding principle when it comes to placing British Columbia's High School basketball teams into their divisions and for the Charles Hays Rainmakers, the numbers have provided for a recommendation of a potential drop to AA level basketball.

The British Columbia High School Boys Basketball Association released its tiering numbers for a two year period on Thursday, a process which uses the male student population numbers for registered secondary schools.

By reviewing those numbers, the BCHSBBA creates benchmarks for their divisions and then places the schools into four divisions ranging from Single A schools to AAAA.

From those current numbers Charles Hays fell ten students short of the break point between AAA and AA, with 158 male students listed for Grades 10 and 11 of their enrolment numbers.

That total left CHSS just below the cut off line for inclusion in the AAA division.

However there is still an avenue for the Rainmakers to follow if they wish to compete at AAA basketball in 2015-16, and if so, there will be a bit of paperwork required.

According to a notice on the BCHSBBA website, any team that wishes to play in a higher tier than that now noted, can submit their application to the Association.

The Request to Play Up application will also require a commitment to play at the higher level for both the 2015-16 and 2016-17 season.

The deadline for that submission is February 19th, after which adjustments to the tiering results will be made, following those changes, teams will have a second opportunity deadline to declare their wish to "play up",  that comes up on February 27th.

Unless there are other considerations for School District to make regarding the placement of the team within the provincial body, it would seem that the more competitive home for the Rainmakers would be in their current division placement of AAA.

Considering the success of the Charles Hays program in AAA ball over the last few years and the nature of the compete level that the team brings to the range of tournaments that they are involved in, filling out the required forms to "play up", may be the most important drill for the team for the next two weeks.

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