NEA League settles with 4 teams

MEDICAL LAKE Following a series of meetings over the past couple of months the Northeast A League has charted its path for the immediate future.

"We finally know that we will still be the Northeast A League, but with just four teams total," Medical Lake athletic director Dawn Eliassen wrote in an email.

Following the results of reclassification in late 2023 that sliced three teams from the 1A NEA, the surviving members include Medical Lake, Lakeside, Riverside and Colville.

Deer Park will move up to the 2A Greater Spokane League while Freeman and Newport drop down to 2B competition.

"We will still play each other one time in football and still twice in most other sports," Eliassen said.

The decrease in league competition means NEA members will face more non-league schools.

The league will be playing mostly non-league games with such a small league.

"That affords us the chance to play schools both smaller and larger than us," Eliassen explained. We have lots of options out there. 

Medical Lake will still play Newport, Freeman, and Deer Park in some sports, but there will also be some new opponents on the schedules in the upcoming year.

While the foundation has been built there are still a number of other details that need to be worked out, Eliassen noted.

"There are a lot of details to explore and consider the implications with a four school league," Eliassen said.

One of those is post season formats and Eliassen said specifics about how district competition, etc. will look now with the smaller league. The league ADs will be working on that in May.