Gladstone athletics switch conferences

GLADSTONE — The Gladstone athletics program is making a move really soon and they say it’s what’s best for their program.

Next year, the Braves will leave the Great Northern Conference to join the Mid–Peninsula Conference. The move has been 10 years in the making and had a lot to do with the geographic location of the teams within the conference.

“We all struggle to fill our schedules and many of us have to travel three, sometimes four or more hours to fill out your schedule. We’ve been dealing with Benzi Central and schools downstate for football. We’ve been going to the eastern end and the western end for basketball games so geographics played a role,” Houle said.

Gladstone was also making the move for competitive reasons, notably for a conference tournament in wrestling. But it shouldn’t take long for the Braves to get acquainted with the teams in the MPC.

“We have a relationship with all of them right now. We the exception of Iron Mountain who’s not on our boys schedule, we have those teams on our schedules and play many of them twice. We’re very familiar with them and the luxury of being able to play in a conference that has that many teams in it is just an ideal situation for us,” said Houle.