The 2015 spring schedule has been released, featuring a local, but competitive non-league pre-season schedule. The Bulldogs open up once again with Lane (OR), on Saturday February 28 at Wilsonville HS in Oregon. The facility at Wilsonville is artificial turf, as is the majority of field locations for Bellevue’s pre-season offerings to help prevent the chance of rainouts. Lane finished third at the NWAC Championships last May, and defeated Bellevue at the tournament as Bellevue and Lane finished second and third respectively. Bellevue will then play a four game set against annual contender Pierce. Eight of Bellevue’s pre-season games are against local west region rivals Pierce and Tacoma. “They are both good teams, are close and convenient, and are coached by two of my large litter of ex-players here at Bellevue who are now in the coaching ranks,” says Coach Mark Yoshino. The Bulldogs will then take a one-day trip to Yakima, on Tuesday March 10; a day BC players do not have classes. “There are soft rumors that Yakima’s legendary Parker Field is getting artificial turf by the time our game arrives,” says Yoshino. Bellevue will then play in a three-team round robin event at Concordia University in Portland, which features a state-of-the-art turf complex which is one of the finest of all colleges in the northwest. The final pre-season weekend will be the annual Tacoma-Pierce Invite, featuring two games against Treasure Valley, a team Bellevue narrowly defeated 2-0 at last May’s NWAC Championships. “Aaron (Sutton) had one of the top teams in the NWAC last year with the most wins of all teams in the conference. They battled us tough last May and have a ton of key guys back; I look for his squad to be one of the contenders again this spring,” says Yoshino. 14 of the 18 pre-season games are against the top five teams at last year’s NWAC Championships. “The difficulty of the pre-season schedule is like a pre-season NWAC Championship. It will be a good test to see how consistent we play and how we respond each weekend facing tough teams,” notes Yoshino.
The league play begins March 28 in a re-match of last year’s title game against Edmonds. Bellevue ends league play with a non-league set at SW Oregon. The Bulldogs will travel eight hours to Coos Bay, OR in what will be the first time BC plays SW Oregon in the last 20 years, if not longer. Bellevue’s bye weekend just happened to be the last weekend of league play. If Bellevue by chance wins the regular season league title, there will be a three week layoff in between games due to the new playoff format this spring if the SW Oregon series wasn’t scheduled (SW Oregon is the only other team in the NWAC besides BC who had a bye that same weekend). “Although it is quite a long drive, and not a budget-friendly trip, it was something we had to do in order to prevent getting stale heading into post-season. Jason (SW Oregon Coach Cooper) was one game away from earning a spot into the NWAC Championships last May, and will be very competitive,” says Yoshino.
2015 also marks the inception of a brand new, conference-wide playoff system. New this spring will be the NWAC Cross-Regional playoffs. Each regular season region winner receives a bye and automatic entry to the final eight at the NWAC Championships. The #2, 3, and 4 finishers in each of the four regions will then play in a cross-region bracket style playoff, hosted by each of the second place finishers in each region. The # 3 and #4 teams will be from different regions (example: North #2 hosts East #3 and South #4). One winner will move on from the four cross-region tourneys to join the four regular season region champs at the NWAC Championships in Longview over Memorial Day weekend. “While Bellevue has had great success in the now defunct North Region playoff method and was economically more feasible, the new method provides consistency among the NWAC and potentially will create an opportunity for truly the best teams to be at the championship. It will also eliminate the monotony of playing the same teams in the playoffs as we did during league play,” says Yoshino.
Last Updated November 2, 2014
