The CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens girls volleyball league will be undergoing a facelift for 2010.
The two-division structure, which is normally divided by borough, will now be separated by level of competition, league chairperson Jenn Cocchi told The Post on Monday.
The new configuration will look a lot like the Brooklyn/Queens girls basketball league, which has been extremely successful.
Teams in the newly formed Division I will be three-time defending champion St. Francis Prep, 2009 runner-up Fontbonne Hall, Mary Louis, Archbishop Molloy, Bishop Kearney and Bishop Loughlin. Division II will feature St. John’s Prep, Bishop Ford, St. Edmund, St. Savior, Christ the King and St. Agnes. Nazareth will field a junior varsity team in Division II.
“I think it’s great for the league,” Cocchi said. “The competition is going to be so much better.”
This year, Division I will send three teams to the CHSAA Class AA state championships at York College in Queens. When Brooklyn/Queens is not hosting, that total will fall to two. Division II will send two teams to the CHSAA Class A state championships at Cardinal Spellman in The Bronx.
The league format will be similar to girls basketball – the top two teams get a bye into the semifinals while the No. 3 seed plays the No. 6 seed and the No. 4 plays the No. 5 in the quarters.
“I think it’s great,” St. Francis Prep coach Kevin Colucci said. “It’s better competition throughout the whole season. … You want to be in a battle more often than not.”
Junior varsity matches will still be held before varsity matches, though times will be changed to accommodate travel. Matches between teams in the same borough will continue to start at 4 p.m., while outerborough matches will begin at 4:15 p.m.
Travel was one of the main concerns and the reason this is the first time Brooklyn/Queens is attempting to this. But Colucci doesn’t think it’ll pose much of a problem.
“You’re only traveling three times,” he said. “You’re only going away to the Brooklyn teams three times. That’s not an issue at all as far as I can see.”
The change comes at a good time for the girls volleyball league. For almost a decade, Queens completely dominated the landscape, but in the past two seasons Brooklyn has made inroads.
This year, Fontbonne became the first Brooklyn team to make the championship match since Kearney in 2001. It was always believed the lack of depth of quality teams in the borough gave the stronger Brooklyn teams a disadvantage against their Queens counterparts in the playoffs.
“It’s great for Fontbonne, Kearney and Loughlin – they get to play better teams every match now,” Colucci said. “It’s great for us, too.”
Added Kearney coach Kristin Wulff: “I don’t know why we haven’t done it sooner. It’s going to be better for the girls all-around. Better competition will always allow them to improve.”
The restructuring comes on the heels of other changes in the CHSAA. The boys soccer league is becoming citywide in 2010 and there will be alterations in boys basketball. This spring, softball went halfway into changes with crossover games between teams from Queens and Brooklyn. That was a success and the response to volleyball has been a positive one.
“For the most part,” Cocchi said. “I haven’t heard anything negative.”