On the Eastern half of the state, the 4A schools are split up into the Mississippi Athletic Conference and the Mississippi Valley Conference.  Today, we will look at the decade numbers for the schools in the Athletic Conference.  One constant with the Eastern schools that differs from those in the West is the fact that ALL of their games are conference games.  In the Athletic Conference, there are ten teams and they each play one another for a nine game conference and regular season schedule.  They do not play teams from the Valley Conference in the regular season.  So, with that in mind, here are the records of the Athletic Conference teams from 2000-2009…

Conference/Regular Season Records:

Bettendorf 83-7 (four undefeated seasons)

Davenport Assumption 70-20 (three undefeated seasons)

North Scott 64-26 (one undefeated season)

Muscatine 54-36

Pleasant Valley 51-39

Clinton 39-51 (one undefeated season)

Burlington 36-54

Davenport Central 20-70

Davenport North 18-72

Davenport West 15-75

Yeah, Bettendorf sorta ran the show for the decade…83-7! Yikes.  Their ‘worst’ season was 2002 when they slumped for their only 7-2 season.  However, it motivated the Bulldogs, because they made it to the title game that season before losing to Valley. 

On the flipside of Bettendorf’s success, Davenport North and Davenport West failed to reach .500 in any season of the decade.  Davenport Central finished 5-4 this past season to avoid the same fate.  Now let’s look at the postseason/playoff records of these teams…

Postseason Records, listed by team, substate record, playoff record and years qualifying:

Bettendorf 1-1, 20-7, 9 (six semifinals, four finals, TWO TITLES 04, 07)

Davenport Assumption 0-2, 6-6, 6 (one semifinal)

Muscatine 0-1, 3-6, 6 (one semifinal)

Clinton 1-1, 1-1, 1

Pleasant Valley 0-2, 0-4, 4

North Scott 0-2, 0-3, 3

Burlington 0-2, 0-1, 1

Davenport Central 0-1

That’s 20-7 for Bettendorf, 10-21 for the rest of the conference combined.  Oddly, Bettendorf ended the decade by losing at home to a 4-5 Cedar Rapids Kennedy team in the substate after posting an 8-1 regular season.  That meant 2009 was the only season the Bulldogs failed to qualify for the playoffs in the decade.  We will finish up our look back at the 4A teams with the Valley Conference next time.