Del City down to 5A, Tulsa Washington up to 6A in new attendance numbers

Nick Warehime’s feelings weren’t hurt at all when he saw the tentative Average Daily Membership numbers released by the OSSAA on Thursday afternoon.

The Del City High School athletic director and football coach was pleased to see that his school would be moving down from Class 6A to Class 5A for the upcoming year in all sports other than football. The football team will be in 5A for the 2012-13 seasons.

“We knew the numbers would be close, and they were,” Warehime said. “Last year, we missed being in 5A by two students.

“I think this will be a good thing for Del City High School. We’ve played so many good people, and there are good teams in 5A, too. But when you look at the differentiation in the numbers from the bottom of 6A to the top, it’s just a tall order.”

Del City’s spot as the smallest 6A school was taken over by Tulsa Washington, which won the last two Class 5A state championships in boys basketball.

“Basketball is basketball, whether you’re in 6A or 5A,” Hornets coach Shea Seals said. “We know there’s tough competition in either class. We just don’t know as much about the teams in 6A right now.

“It is what it is. We’ll just go play.”

Tulsa Edison also moved up to 6A, while Claremore moved back down to 5A.

Classifications based on the numbers released Tuesday are not yet official. The OSSAA releases the numbers for its member institutions to check against their own data, allowing time for the OSSAA to correct any discrepancies before the Aug. 10 board meeting to approve the final numbers.

Also, the new rules adopted by the OSSAA this summer regarding selective enrollment schools will be put into effect based on Tuesday’s attendance numbers. So teams who meet the criteria of the new rules will be moved up a class in that sport.

“We’ve been waiting on these numbers before making any determinations with those schools,” OSSAA director Ed Sheakley said. “We have some preliminary work done, but now we’ll go on a sport-by-sport basis to look at the criteria and look at whether teams finished in the top eight in three of the last five years.”