‘It adds a lot of stability:’ SJCA to begin competing in the Tri Valley Athletic Association

Saint Joseph’s Catholic Academy has officially joined the Tri Valley Athletic Association, the Boalsburg-based Catholic high school announced Jan. 28, and will begin competing in the conference starting the 2022-23 school year.

For second-year athletic director Justin Rodkey, the opportunity to face new schools is not only exciting for his staff and himself, but also for the student-athletes who now have new motivation and goals to look forward to throughout their seasons.

“Being in a conference allows them to compete for a conference championship,” Rodkey said. “In a league, now you’re playing some of the teams that you’re gonna see on a regular basis, so over the years you kind of build up those friendships with the other schools and athletic directors.”

Consistency also played a major part in the school’s decision to join the TVAA, since the Wolfpack will now compete against most (if not all) of the other nine schools in the league on a yearly basis.

Those schools are East Juniata High School, Greenwood School District, Halifax Area School District, Juniata High School, Line Mountain School District, Millersburg Area School District, Newport School District, Susquenita School District and Upper Dauphin Area School District.

Now, the games will be played with higher stakes, considering conference records determine playoff seeding at the end of each team’s season.

“It adds a lot of stability, just to the program in general,” Rodkey said. “And you can prepare a little bit better knowing in advance that this school is on our schedule.”

In its 10-year existence Saint Joseph’s had previously been a part of one league, the Mid-State Athletic Conference, but only for basketball. The league disbanded a few years ago.

During its short period in the league, both Saint Joseph’s girls’ and boys’ basketball teams made strong runs in the playoffs. Perhaps athletic directors from other schools in the TVAA took notice.

“Now you have a history of competing and being successful, so I think teams were more apt to be like, ‘Oh maybe we could have them join the league,’” Rodkey said.

Rodkey highlighted a few reasons why Saint Joseph’s may have had trouble joining a league throughout its early stages, noting the school only had 40 students enrolled at its inception in 2011.

“Being a young school, what league wants to be like, ‘Hey come join our league’?” Rodkey said. “The big hurdle in general is would a league want us? For any league, does the league want us and do we fit what that league has?”

But now that they’ve found a home, Saint Joseph’s will no longer have to worry about scrambling to find out-of-conference teams to fill its schedule.