varsity.roanoke.com

Rockbridge County's boys basketball team began the week on the verge of winning the Southern Valley District title.

That shot has been rejected.

The Southern Valley took an unusual step Tuesday when the six-team league's athletic directors decided not to crown a regular-season boys or girls champion.

The athletic directors also canceled the rest of the regular season and set up the pairings for the district tournaments based on each team's Southern Valley record to date.

The seedings for the tournaments are as follows:

Boys -- 1. Rockbridge County, 2. Robert E. Lee-Staunton, 3. Fort Defiance, 4. Waynesboro, 5. Stuarts Draft, 6. Wilson Memorial; Girls -- 1. R.E. Lee, 2. Fort Defiance, 3. Wilson Memorial, 4. Waynesboro, 5. Stuarts Draft, 6. Rockbridge County.

Rockbridge AD David Miller said the district is unable to complete its regular-season schedule because of a backlog of weather-related postponements and the possibility of further scheduling problems if schools remain closed this week.

Rockbridge County, which led the Southern Valley boys standings by a full game over Lee with a 4-0 record, had four district home games remaining that have been canceled.

Rockbridge's girls, and the boys and girls teams from Lee, also had four games left to play.

"It's just one of those years," Miller said. "You can't control what happens in the sky."

The ADs also moved the start of the district tournaments back from Saturday to Monday, with a scheduled conclusion on Feb. 19. Miller said no thought was given to further delaying the tournaments.

"Obviously, we've learned that if you have four days, it doesn't mean you can play three games," he said.

Miller said the ADs did not want to play further games with little chance of completing the season.

"What we didn't want to do was play one game and have the wrong team lose, and then what do you do?" Miller said. "If we were two games ahead and all we needed to do was win one game, it would be different."

The Southern Valley did not follow the lead of the Group A Dogwood District, which determined a regular-season champion by counting the first half of its schedule after each team had played all the others.

The decision could prove very costly to Rockbridge's boys team, which defeated both Lee and Fort Defiance on the road.

The Southern Valley's No. 1 seed receives a first-round bye in the Region III Division 3 tournament. The No. 2 team must visit Northside in the first round.

Now the only way Rockbridge can earn the Southern Valley's No. 1 seed is by winning the district tournament.

Miller said the decision was reached by consensus, adding that he would have been the lone dissenting vote had an official ballot been taken.

"You can make it sound bad or you can make it sound good," Miller said.

"We were going to have to beat Fort Defiance or Lee anyway. I think we're in a pretty good spot."