Mounties to Remain Free-Lance for Now : High schools: Southern Section denies Montclair Prep’s bid to join a lower-division league.

Montclair Prep High’s preliminary step toward rejoining a Southern Section league stalled Thursday, perhaps leaving the school’s athletic program without a league affiliation for the next five years.

Montclair Prep, which was ousted from the Alpha League as part of the backlash over athletic recruiting violations within the Mountie program, has been a free-lance team since the fall. At a meeting Thursday of the Southern Section Council, the Mounties’ bid for membership in a lower-division league was formally voted down.

The decision came as part of the section’s releaguing process. Montclair Prep had sought to be included among the 99-school “Private Area” classification, most of whose members do not play 11-man football.

“There was just no place to put their football program,” said Dean Crowley, a section administrator. “And their (athletic) program is just out of sync with most of those schools.”

Montclair Prep must maintain its free-lance status through the new four-year releaguing cycle, which runs from the 1994-95 school year to 1997-98, unless the Mounties can join a league with the unanimous approval of the league’s principals, Southern Section Commissioner Stan Thomas said.

Montclair Prep is still exploring the possibility of joining leagues in both boys’ and girls’ sports, Athletic Director Greg Reece said.

Currently, most Montclair Prep teams--including the high-profile baseball and football teams--are placed in playoff divisions based on a subjective evaluation by section administrators. The Mounties’ football team last fall played a free-lance schedule and was placed in Division IX for the playoffs--and won the championship.

The boys’ and girls’ basketball teams, whose playoff alignments are determined by school enrollment, will be less affected in the postseason. Montclair Prep’s boys’ basketball team plays in Division V-AA and is ranked seventh in the state in Division V.

Montclair Prep’s request to join the Private Area classification was first denied at the committee level earlier this month, and though the school filed an appeal, Reece did not attend Thursday’s council meeting to argue the case.

Reece said the school did not press the issue because representatives from Private Area-class schools indicated that it was unlikely that Montclair Prep would be welcomed into any leagues at that level.

Montclair Prep won consecutive Southern Section baseball titles in 1990 and 1991 and annually contends for divisional titles in football and boys’ basketball.

“We’ll go out and play some teams from leagues we’d like to join and go from there,” Reece said.