Hazel Park will leave the OAA Next Fall.

Written Tuesday June 19th at 10:00 PM

The Hazel Park Vikings will be on the way out of the OAA.

Hazel Park was accepted into the Macomb Area Conference. The Vikings will begin play in the MAC in the fall of 2019.

Hazel Park Athletic Director Dave Muylaert in a interview with the Macomb Daily explained the reasons why his school was leaving the OAA. "It's been hard for us to compete in some sports in the Oakland Activities Association due to our numbers. For instance in girls swimming we have 10 or 12 girls on the team. We regularly compete with schools that have between 30 and 50 team members, It's difficult and discouraging for our student-athletes. When you are trying to build or maintain a program being in a non competitive situation is tough. That's why some of our sports programs have suffered."

Hazel Park whom will be departing the league and Harrison will close it's doors next year thus leaving the league at 21 schools next fall. The Vikings are in Class B with the Hawks along with Ferndale and Pontiac. There are numerous Class B schools that play in the MAC that should help their cause. "The MAC has a really good realignment system to place schools where they belong" Muylaert concluded.

The main reason why for the Vikings departure from the league is competitive balance. They will be a voting member of the MAC this year.

Hazel Park will be the first team to leave the OAA since Waterford Kettering and Waterford Mott left in 2007 for the Kensington Lakes Activities Association.

Thoughts.

I was not surprised and it was no secret that Hazel Park wanted out of the OAA. They have been wanting out of the league for a long time because of competitive balance and now they have that.

Hazel Park has been frustrated with the league on two fronts, the first is travel considering that they would have to travel to places like Lake Orion, Clarkston, or Oxford in northern Oakland County and the other is the multiple realignments especially when bigger schools go into their division. Muylaert feels that they can not compete with the bigger schools because of school size. Perfect example was in 2016 when Muylaert complained about the Blue alignment for football that had Troy, Bloomfield Hills, and Rochester whom were bigger schools that struggled or in 2017 when Lake Orion was in their division for girls soccer.

This was not the first time that Hazel Park wanted out of the league. In 2017, they were approved by the Athletic Directors of the MAC but were turned down by the principals.

Stay tuned to OAA Now for the latest on this developing story.

Here is the Macomb Daily Article on Hazel Park's departure from the league.
http://www.macombdaily.com/sports/20180619/hazel-park-joins-the-mac-kicks-off-competition-in-the-2019-2020-school-year