Commentary: A rivalry is (re)born
Rivalries are just something that most people accept in sports without much thought since they are usually in place as far back as anyone can remember.
It is rare that anyone actually gets to see a new one unfold. It pretty much takes the establishment of a new team or a team moving into a new league for any new rivalries to be born.
Bigfork High School switched back into Class B this year for the first time since the 1996-1997 school year. There were some concerns that the transition would cause the teams to lose the rivalries that they had enjoyed for more than a decade. However, a few people pointed out that one of the school's oldest rivals would be waiting for them in Class B – Eureka.
That's right, before Bigfork butted heads with Whitefish or Columbia Falls, the Vikings and Valkyries were sworn enemies with the Lions. The two schools have both moved back and forth from Class B to Class A and now back to B, though Eureka was only in Class A for the 2006-07 school year.
Some rivalries stem from location. Neighboring towns and cross-town rivals are common. However, the schools in the Western 7B District are a little too spread out to hold grudges against each other based on any sort of turf war. In this district, it is more about competition, and Bigfork and Eureka are definitely each other's biggest hurdle once again.
The Vikings football team and Valkyries volleyball team both had their only conference losses of the season to Eureka. Additionally, the Vals battled the Lady Lions through three consecutive matches in order to earn first place in the District 7B Volleyball Tournament. Then at the Western B Divisional Volleyball Tournament, it was Eureka that sent the Vals packing.
This isn't the first time these school's have gone rounds, though. They rivaled the first time they were in Class B and while they were in A together.
The schools are similar in size, which makes them fairly evenly matched in competition as well. Eureka is the largest Class B school in the state with a spring 2008-2009 enrollment of 346. Bigfork is the next largest with 306. The third largest is Deer Lodge with 285. The largest school in District 7B after Eureka and Bigfork is Thompson Falls with 227.
It's easy to say that numbers aren't everything, but the sizes of these schools and the number of students that they have to draw from clearly causes some of the tension shared between them.
Bigfork's rivalry with Eureka may not be a new one, but watching it happen again this year should continue to be interesting as the schools head into basketball season.