So what's new this fall?

The Mansfield High field hockey team began practice on Monday.

The area's high school football teams started their practices last week and the rest of the school sports kicked in today, so I guess that it's fair to say that the 2025 fall sports season is underway.

It will be exactly 15 days from now when Del Malloy and I will kick off the North TV telecast schedule with a field hockey game between the Mansfield Hornets and the King Philip Warriors at KP's Arnold Macktaz Field (Sept. 3, 3:45 p.m., live on the North TV Community Channel), so I thought it would be a good time to take a quick look at some of what will be new when the fall season takes the next step into game competition.

League crossover games:

The Hockomock League is trying something new this year when it comes to scheduling for field hockey, boys' soccer and girls' soccer.

All of the schools in the league have left two game dates open in late October for the purpose of conducting a series of crossover games that will not count in the league standings.

If I have understood the explanations correctly, the first round of games will be conducted entirely within divisions. The Kelley-Rex first-place team at the time will play the second-place team, the third-place and fourth-place teams will play and the Nos. 5 and 6 teams will play. The same schedule will be in place for the Davenport.

Then on the second day, the winners of the 1 vs. 2 games in both divisions will play each other, and so on. The teams that didn't win in their first-round games will take on their opposite numbers from the other division to complete the slate of six games.

The big difference is that the teams are playing each league opponent only once in games that count toward the league standings, making for an 11-game "regular season" as opposed to the usual 16-game schedule that included two games against a divisional opponent and one apiece from the other division. In addition to creating some late-season drama with this crossover series, it also gave the individual schools more opportunities to add intriguing non-league games to their schedules.

Girls' volleyball will continue with the traditional league schedule format. The other sports are trying it as a one-year test, and whether it continues is up to how much the schools liked (or disliked) it.

All of the games will count toward the MIAA power rankings that determine the divisional tournament pairings. 

Football alignments:

Since the end of last season, fans of the MIAA football tournament were eagerly awaiting the results of a major realignment. The MIAA released one version several months ago that raised a few eyebrows -- including the news that Catholic Memorial (the best team money can buy in Division 2) would be dropping to Division 3 because of its total enrollment, instead of going up to Division 1, which would be more in line with the level of competition for the Knights and all of their talent appropriated from several far-flung territories.

No more CM vs. KP Super Bowls, finally.

Well, that was before the appeal process -- and when that was finished, CM stayed put in Division 2, where it won three of the last four divisional Super Bowls, all three of those against very good King Philip teams.

But KP finally got some relief. The Warriors, with a listed enrollment of 1,096 students, were dropped to Division 3 -- which, team for team, may be the toughest and most competitive division in all of Massachusetts high school football.

Seven Hockomock League schools -- Sharon, KP, Milford, Oliver Ames, North Attleboro, Mansfield and Stoughton -- are part of the Division 3 mix this year, although Sharon will not be playing a league schedule this year because of low football turnout and the lingering effect of having a player suffer a paralyzing injury in last year's Thanksgiving Day game against OA. 

And if that wasn't tough enough, the MIAA also decided to drop Marshfield and Barnstable to D3 as well. Both schools have played KP in the playoffs in each of the last two Division 2 tournaments (it's been three in a row for Marshfield against KP), and the Warriors hammered Marshfield in the 2023 Super Bowl at Gillette Stadium.

CM, the school with the allegedly smallest enrollment in D2, can now become a thorn in the side of the second-smallest school, Bishop Feehan, which also happens to be a North TV school.

Feehan is the only remaining local school in D2. Attleboro, Taunton and Franklin all remain in D1, Canton stands alone in D4 from the Hockomock, as does Foxboro in D5. One blessing to realignment is that the MIAA wised up and dropped Diman Vocational to D4 from D2, where it suffered a cringeworthy opening-round defeat in the 2023 playoffs at King Philip. But there is no silver lining to that, as strong programs like Walpole and Norwood also fell to D4 this year.

Tri-County, another North TV school, remains in Division 6.

Field hockey rule changes:

The MIAA almost automatically adopts rule changes established by the National Federation of High Schools, so in each of the sports, there has been some minor tweaking this year.

Field hockey still unmasked.

The national association still hasn't gone far enough in preventing field hockey facial injuries, in my opinion, by leaving the use of face masks optional. Players can choose to wear wire-caged masks during penalty corner plays, but they must take those masks off before resuming play outside the 25-yard area. If the game moves too fast to allow them to shed the masks, they can continue to wear them within that penalty area, but wearing them outside 25 yards will result in a player misconduct penalty.

Given all the debate about player safety -- a debate that was hijacked by the anti-transgender zealots that claim an army of boys is lining up to have their penises removed so they can play girls' sports -- you'd think it would make sense to require masks. And it's not because of transgender athletes. It's because the vast majority of games these days are played on artificial turf, which naturally speeds up the game and results in harder and more powerful shots off a pristine surface. But MAGA never complicates a good rant with facts.

The only other rule change that people will notice is that home teams will now wear their dark colors to show off the school colors, and road teams will wear what used to be the home whites.

Volleyball rule changes:

Six rule changes were approved, but this is likely to be the only one anyone will notice. I quote directly from the NFHS website:

"Rule 9-4-8c was added to the section on multiple contacts, adding second contact to the list of permitted instances, joining a team’s first contact and after a player touches the ball on a block. In addition to eliminating an official’s judgment call, the change allows for play to continue and does not create an advantage for the offending team.

"'In addition to the impact this judgment call has had on the flow of the game, the multiple contact fault has consistently been a point of contention between coaches and officials,' said Lindsey Atkinson, NFHS Director of Sports and liaison to the Volleyball Rules Committee. 'It is the committee’s belief that the elimination of this fault will contribute to less disputes between coaches and officials and ultimately benefit the overall environment of the match.'"

All of that is gobbledygook to me, of course. That's why I have my friend Alex Salachi, the former volleyball coach at Xaverian Brothers High School, in the expert analyst's seat at our North TV volleyball telecasts. I'll let him explain it to me at some point, and I'm sure he will point it out when it happens during any of the four games we do this year.

Soccer rule changes:

Not much of consequence to report here, although the NFHS did adopt six rule changes for high school soccer. Perhaps the most significant one is to make head coaches more responsible for the behavior of any team personnel on their sidelines.

Gibby Reynolds, chair of the Soccer Rules Committee and an administrator with the Oregon School Activities Association, explained the change as such: "Head coaches have a high degree of responsibility for their team areas and bench behavior and are to be held accountable now that officials are allowed to warn, caution or eject head coaches for misconduct committed by bench personnel. This change promotes a culture of respect and positive behavior on the sidelines."

The NFHS has also sanctioned substitutions during hot-weather water breaks, and clarified that the player number required on the front of all uniforms can appear either on the jersey or the shorts, or both.

Nothing like good kits talk.

Football rule changes:

Once again, there were several football rule changes -- but maybe only one that will show up on the field.

Fumbling out of bounds won't be a help.

The NFHS outlawed yardage gains by fumbling a football forward and out of bounds without it being recovered by the opponent. Previously, if you fumbled the ball and it managed to roll forward and over the sideline, your next down would start at the point where the ball went out of bounds. Now, in that same situation, the ball will return to the spot where the ball was first fumbled.

One other significant change reinforced the prohibition of in-helmet electronic communications. You still can't get the play calls from the coaches through speakers in your helmet. But for teams that use large placards held up by players to signal play calls from the sideline (as King Philip does), you can now substitute a fixed-position electronic sign board for that purpose.

I'm not sure anyone in the Hockomock League will be willing the shell out the loot for that gimmick quite yet. 

One other change was in regard to the exact dimensions for the uniform sleeves, but that doesn't go into effect until 2027 and I couldn't explain it to you before then anyway. Expect your favorite team to be shelling out more money for replacement uniforms before then.

And with that, let's all get our stadium seat-cushions and snacks ready. It's almost time for high school sports -- still the best value for your entertainment dollar in my book.

MARK FARINELLA covered his first high school sporting event on Saturday, Sept. 27, 1969 -- a 22-6 loss by the Mansfield High football team to North Attleboro -- almost 56 years ago. Fortunately, it's been uphill ever since. Contact him at theownersbox2020@gmail.com.