Level of competition will take a step up for Coupeville High School athletics next fall.

The Wolves just agreed to become a part of a new 1A/2A Cascade League for the 2006-07 season.

“We know that it may be a struggle at times, but feel that this was the only fair and equitable solution left,” said Coupeville athletic director, Willie Smith.

The new league will contain 2A schools South Whidbey, Lakewood, Granite Falls, Archbishop Murphy, Cedarcrest and newly-appointed 1A school, King’s.

Coupeville’s current league, the Northwest A/B, will break up after this spring because of changes in enrollment figures. Concrete and La Conner will move down to a new 2B league, leaving Friday Harbor as the only other original 1A school in District One.

Forced into a dilemma, Smith tried to work a deal with newly aligned 1A Whatcom County schools, Lynden Christian, Nooksack Valley and Meridian. They didn’t bite.

“The Whatcom County schools balked and said they could not do the traveling,” Smith said.

Smith said he also proposed playing in an independent league with Friday Harbor. Under that proposal there would be scheduling agreements with the Cascade League and the Whatcom County schools.

“We felt that this agreement would work well for everyone involved as far as maintaining rivalry games and limiting their travel,” he said. “We were willing to give up being in a league, scheduling all non-league games and risk no all-league recognition for our athletes…however, an agreement could not be reached with either league…”

The most confusing part of the realignment could come with playoffs.

“At this point playoffs are unknown,” Smith said.

One possible resolution is to have all six District One 1A schools (Coupeville, Friday Harbor, Lynden Christian, Nooksack Valley, Meridian and King’s) take part in a league playoff where the top two or three teams would move on to a bi-district tournament. From there they would compete against Seattle-area 1A schools to advance to state. This would work for all sports except football.

“Football is a bit of an unknown because we really can’t do a playoff tournament so that will need to be worked out,” Smith said.

A final decision should be reached soon.