I remember the last time the regions were reorganized in 2017. When I learned we were going to be in a region with the likes of Jordan, Corner Canyon, Alta, Brighton, and Cottonwood instead of Utah Valley teams Mountain View, Timpanogos, Orem, Skyridge, and our cross-town rival Provo, I was more than a little upset.

Whose idea was it to put us with all these Salt Lake schools and take us away from all the local schools we’d grown up to love playing, and more often than not, beating? My blood boiled when I thought of how long I’d have to travel to get to any Timpview athletic event away from home.

Then it got worse. A decision was made to put the newly built Skyridge high school with all the Utah Valley schools, even when Skyridge was a good 20 minutes closer to those Salt Lake schools than we were, and consequently much further away from us from the other Utah Valley schools.

But enough complaining. Let’s just say I’m glad they reorganized our region, even though I won’t be a student here when the changes come into effect. Anyways, here’s Timpview’s new region, region 7: Timpanogos, Alta, Jordan, Mountain View, Lehi, Orem, and a new high school to be built in the Jordan school district.

I wasn’t the only one that was happy with the change. Timpview freshman Truman Burningham who plays basketball said “I like it because we’ll have to travel way less.”

Junior cross country runner Arda Caliskan said “ It’s going to make it a lot easier for us to win because Corner Canyon isn’t in our region anymore.”

You’ll notice that Alta and Jordan remain in our region and Provo will stay in region 8. I don’t really mind that we kept those two teams as the games against them are usually fun and competitive, and I could make it out to Salt Lake once or twice a season. Although I’m disappointed in the fact that Provo isn’t in our region, we usually play (and beat) them in non-conference play anyway, and geographically, it wouldn’t make a lot of sense.

“With the new Jordan school district school coming in, it’ll be interesting to see how that affects not only Timpview, but the others schools talent as a whole, as it draws from a lot of different schools in the region,” said soccer and football assistant coach Matthew Wheatley.

Other than those two issues, all the problems posed by the 2017 region 7 have been solved. We get to play local teams like Orem, Mountain View, and Timpanogos again, and although it’s not the closest school, Lehi is a nice addition.

Burningham was asked who was the biggest threat in the region for basketball and he said “Definitely Timpanogos.”

Wheatley said “from a soccer standpoint, it’s the best region in the state, it’s really deep and good teams are going to be left out of the playoffs which is always tough.”

There are some teams I’ll miss watching our T-birds play against. Cottonwood was always an easy win in almost every sport so I might miss that a little bit. I won’t miss Brighton because they were always kind of mediocre and they had the same school colors, which was always kind of confusing. As far as Corner Canyon goes, they are the ones I will miss playing the most because beating them was such an accomplishment. I’ll just have to hope we schedule them in the non-conference.

So there’s my take on the new region 7. It could be better, but overall it’s a good mix old rivals and new foes. Enjoy it while it lasts Timpview. Because in 2021 the regions will be reorganized yet again. Just hope and pray they get it right then.