City rivalries back on center stage this fall

Posted 9/25/14

For a long time, it seemed like the Warwick public high school teams were jumbled up and down divisions, with one in the top division, another in the bottom division and a third somewhere mixed in. …

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City rivalries back on center stage this fall

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For a long time, it seemed like the Warwick public high school teams were jumbled up and down divisions, with one in the top division, another in the bottom division and a third somewhere mixed in. They were never in the same place at the same time.

There was Pilgrim field hockey inexplicably in Division I, a random girls’ soccer team up there as well. There were the football teams, separated into different subdivisions and therefore not playing during the regular season for reasons that could best be described as arbitrary.

The teams around Warwick are separated by only handful of miles, yet would go full sports seasons without ever meeting on the field except for the occasional meaningless non-league game

It was a ridiculous in a lot of ways.

That still happens in some sports – and there are good reasons for it occasionally – but in other sports this fall, the city finally gets some good old-fashioned rivalry games, an element of the overall sports culture around here that’s truly been lacking.

Realignment shakes things up every couple of years, and this off-season, it shook Warwick into one division in girls’ soccer, girls’ volleyball and field hockey. It shook Pilgrim and Toll Gate into the same football division for the first time since 2011.

For the first time in a long time, Warwick schools are playing against one another on a regular basis. It certainly adds to the drama. Warwick is considered a city, but it’s not exactly New York. Students across all three schools grow up together playing youth sports, and that suddenly comes to a rude close in a lot of sports when high school begins.

Not anymore, at least this season. So far this fall there have been five rivalry games in league play that actually mean quite a bit, and there are tons more on the horizon throughout the remainder of the fall.

Already, Vets has asserted its dominance on the field hockey field, defeating both Toll Gate and Pilgrim. Pilgrim, which moved down from Division I to Division II this season and finally put all the Warwick teams in the same division for the first time since 2009, beat Toll Gate 2-0.

All three teams will play each other again in mid-October.

In volleyball, Pilgrim and Vets have each beaten Toll Gate in exciting matches, and Pilgrim and Vets will play against one another today in the first of two showdowns this season. There will also be rematches of the Pilgrim-Toll Gate and Vets-Toll Gate matches.

It doesn’t stop there. All three girls’ soccer teams are in Division II now after Vets moved down last season and Toll Gate moved down this season, giving the city that set-up for the first time since 2005, as Pilgrim moved down to D-II the following year.

It’s been nearly a decade since Pilgrim has played a league game in the same year against Vets and Toll Gate.

They’ll all meet within the next few weeks, as Toll Gate and Pilgrim – maybe the best city game going this fall – will take place on Oct. 2. Pilgrim will play Vets on Oct. 6 and Toll Gate will play Vets on Oct. 10.

On the football field, Pilgrim and Toll Gate moved down to Division III together and will play the city’s only natural rivalry league game on Nov. 11 at Toll Gate.

In boys’ soccer, though, nothing has changed this season in terms of divisions, Pilgrim will play against Toll Gate on Oct. 20 in a game that is always exciting, regardless of record. Last year, the Titans won the Division II championship but lost to Pilgrim in the regular season.

There’s even tennis, where Pilgrim and Vets are struggling through winless seasons at the moment. Yet, one of them won’t end up winless, because they’ll square off on Oct. 7 in what will almost certainly be the biggest match of either team’s season.

It may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, but playing against the kids you know and the kids you grew up with means a lot in high school.

I’m from North Kingstown, and when I played football at Hendricken, the most exciting game of the season for me was the one when we took on NK. I’d know everybody on the field, and everybody on the sidelines. It was my own personal rivalry game.

I always felt like it brought out the best in me, and I think that’s common amongst athletes in those types of games. Rivalry games mean more, and it’s about time Warwick had more games that mattered.

This fall, the city finally does.

Kevin Pomeroy is the assistant sports editor at the Warwick Beacon. He can be reached at 732-3100 and kevinp@rhodybeat.com.

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