[4/21/03]The first-round bye in the MPSA Academy-A playoffs that comes with winning the Conference 5-A title is supposed to be a reward for a season of hard work and success.

For Porters Chapel Academy coach Randy Wright, it seems like a curse he can’t escape.

“I hate it. It’s the third year in a row, and I hate it,” said Wright, who guided the Eagles to their third straight conference championship this season. PCA clinched the Conference 5-A title with an 11-0 win over Tallulah Academy on Friday.

“I don’t like having the week off. But, that’s the way it’s set up. It’s been set up like that every year. We knew it was coming, so it’s something we’ve got to deal with … I wish we could step right in on Tuesday and get after a playoff team. But it doesn’t work that way for us so it’s just something we have to deal with, and we have to adapt.”

It has just been a coincidence that PCA has had a bye every year it has won a conference championship. Because there are seven conferences in Academy-A, it creates an uneven bracket and two conference champions get a bye each year.

In 2001 and 2002, PCA was in Conference 7-A, which was one of the two to get a bye. Conference 5-A also got a bye in 2001, and 6-A got a bye in 2002. This year, PCA switched to Conference 5-A, which will get a bye along with Conference 6-A.

Wright was happy to win the conference championship, but said he would rather keep playing so his team doesn’t get rusty. The Eagles have won 17 straight games, and haven’t lost in nearly six weeks.

Based on the success of the past few years, however, Wright has had a contingency plan in mind all season.

The Academy-AA and AAA playoffs don’t begin until next week, allowing him to schedule games against those teams, and if things work out he’ll get his wish about playing playoff teams.

Wright is trying to add games against No. 2 Simpson and No. 1 Hillcrest later this week. The Eagles won at Simpson earlier this season, and had a game against Hillcrest rained out.

“It’s something we’ve dealt with. This is the third year in a row, so we pretty much plan for this,” Wright said.