By Derek Thompson

The Selma Times-Journal

The road to the high school football playoffs in class 1A, region 4 will be a bit easier in 2015 with the closure of Sunshine and Akron.

The seven-team region will become a five-team region this upcoming season, meaning 80 percent of the teams will make the postseason. Only one of A.L. Johnson, Ellwood Christian, Keith, Linden and Maplesville will fail to qualify for the playoffs.

“They will still take the best four out of the five this year,” said Ellwood Christian first year head coach Trey Pike. “This year we will be one man out.”

The loss of two area opponents left local schools Ellwood Christian and Keith scrambling to find opponents to fill their schedule. Pike, who just took over at Ellwood in May, said it didn’t take long for him to find replacement games.

“I had the schedule filled within my first four days of taking the job, so it wasn’t too bad,” Pike said. “I was able to pick up two games pretty quick. Didn’t have to miss any dates or anything like that. Our schedule is full now, so we’re good.”

The Eagles have replaced their matches against Akron and Sunshine with

games against Winterboro and Lynn.

“(Winterboro head coach Alan Beckett) has a program similar to ours and is kind of building it up,” Pike said. “I thought it would be a pretty good game. We got that one together because he had an off week and I did as well. That one just kind of worked out.”

The head coach of Lynn called Pike to schedule a game, according to Pike.

“(Lynn head coach Calvin Aldridge) said they had three home games scheduled and they kind of fell into the same thing we did just in a different region,” Pike said. “We worked a deal out with them.”

Keith High School head coach Harry Crum said he scheduled Marengo County and Isabella as replacement games.

“I was able to schedule Marengo for the week we were going to play Akron,” Crum said. “That worked out because they were playing against Sunshine on that same night we were going to play Akron. We played them in 2010 and 2011. Those were very physical games. That’s a team we needed to take because in recent history we have only played them twice.”

Crum scheduled Isabella as Keith’s replacement game for Sunshine.

“Isabella is a little further, and we don’t really have a history with them,” Crum said. “I don’t think we ever played them on the varsity level.”

The Alabama High School Athletic Association’s current alignment lasts through the upcoming athletics season. Crum said it’s anyone’s guess how the alignment will be adjusted from there, but for now he’s focused on getting his team back into the postseason.

That’ll be a challenge in a loaded region. Akron and Sunshine won only two combined games last year, with Sunshine winning both of those.

The Tigers beat Akron 8-0 and then were credited with a win in a game Ellwood Christian was forced to forfeit after a computing error left the Eagles without any eligible players.

After an outstanding streak of six straight playoff appearances, Keith is the only remaining team in the region that did not make the playoffs last year. Maplesville won the 1A state championship, Linden and Ellwood qualified for the second round, and A.L. Johnson made it into round one.

“I know two of the strongest teams in the state are in our region,” Crum said. “That’s Maplesville and Linden. We’re just going to play the team that is in front of us and hopefully claim one of the spots. We’ve been to the playoffs six out of the last seven years. We missed it last year so we want to restart our tradition.”