The last thing the Campbell High School football program needed or wanted next year was to be placed in the new Div. V in the NHIAA's six-division allignment.

But that's where the Cougars were orginally placed, in a division that includes established programs like Bishop Brady, St. Thomas of Dover and Kearsarge Regional.

Campbell, with 575 students, just three more than Gilford, would have been the smallest public school in the division. But with a likely cooperative program being formed between Epping and Newmarket, the Cougars will likely be placed where they'll be more competitive, in Div. VI.

Division VI will be the only division in the state with 10 teams. All the others will have have nine next fall, creating two open dates for schools in Div. I and Div. II, who play a 10-game regular season schedule.

Somersworth, whose school population puts it in Div. VI, will petition up to Div. V, allowing Fall Mountain of Langdon to drop to Div. VI. The Fall Mountain program has struggled to compete in recent years.

When athletic directors from Div. III and Div. IV football teams met on Monday, Souhegan was hoping it could continue its rivalry with Plymouth, at least in a crossover game what wouldn't count in the standings.

But Plymouth, which will drop to Div. IV after winning nine of 11 Div. III titles, has agreed to play Milford next fall. The Spartans are petitioning up to stay in Div. III.

Souhegan, instead, will renew an old rivalry with Laconia. Crossover games will no count in the standings.

There was also talk at the meeting about the possibility of Epping and Newmarket merging to form a cooperative team. With a combined enrollment in the 700s, the team would likely play in Div. V if the cooperative team is formed.

It would be the state's third cooperative team. There are currently two in Div. III hockey, Belmont-Gilford and Inter-Lakes-Moultonborough.

While the bottom three divisions in the proposed six division setup for New Hampshire football next fall are still uncertain, with school petitions having yet to hit the football committee, the top three seem pretty set..

Division I remains unchanged, with the same nine teams that competed this fall. Division II's only proposed change is Goffstown dropping ot Division III.

The new Division III lineup, with Milford committing to petitioning up, includes Milford, Hollis-Brookline, Souhegan, Con-Val of Peterborough, John Stark of Weare, Goffstown, Bedford, Portsmouth and Pembroke Academy.

Milford and John Stark's likely petition to remain in Division III allows Kennett of Conway and Kingswood to drop to Div. IV, where it will be joined by 2007 Division III champ Plymouth.

It won't happen on Thanksgiving, but if a plan being talked about by Class L athletic directors gets NHIAA football committee approval, we could have a season opener between Nashua South and Bishop Guertin next fall.

The new divisional format of six nine-team divisions, which is expected to pass, would leave two open dates for both Div. I and Div. II. Under the plan, on the opening weekend there would be nine crossover games between the two divisions, with opponents matched up by last year's record.

So if South and Bishop Guertin are both champions, they would play each other, with Pinkerton opening against Exeter,  Manchester West playing Dover and Winnacunnet squaring off against Londonderry.

The bottom five teams in each division would play the bottom five in the other.

Rachel Gratton's goal 4:34 into the first overtime lifted second-seeded Exeter to a 2-1 victory over No. 8 Pinkerton Academy in the Class L girls soccer championship game at Nashua's Stellos Stadium on Monday night.