Heading into the winter break, 2 teams receive an early gift from the coaches and media, in the form of being a new #1 ranked team, going into the New Year, while the other 2 maintain their top spot.

The top 2 teams in 4A hail from the Capital City, and Cheyenne Central remains on top, although Cheyenne South is gaining ground. The Bison move up to #2. Although they have a losing record, many voters realized that #3 Gillette, played some tough teams in Las Vegas last week...and they played them close. That's why the Camels only dropped one spot. East holds at #4, mostly because all of their games last week got called off, for obvious reasons. Rock Springs enters the top 5 as the #5 teams, largely thanks to their 3-0 performance last weekend at home.

The 3 undefeated teams in 3A, occupy the top 3 rankings. Star Valley climbs over defending champ Buffalo, to become the third #1 team in 3A in as many polls. The Bison received more first place votes, but the Braves made up for it elsewhere. SV just got by Bear Lake, Idaho right as the voting ended. The other undefeated team is Douglas, which has managed to climb up 2 more spots to #3. Worland drop to #4. The Warriors, like Gillette, have a losing record, but they've played some tough teams close...including Star Valley, which was a late add to the schedule when everything had to be re-arraigned at the Flaming Gorge Classic due to the weather. Cody is in at #5. Both losses so far for the Broncs are against undefeated Buffalo and Douglas, so that shows that they've played some teams.

The 2A rankings are mostly dominated by the west, which occupy the top 4 spots. The first 3 are unchanged from the last poll...Wind River, Greybull and Wyoming Indian, in that order. All 3 teams are scheduled to play in the Big Horn Basin Tournament in Lovell on January 8-9, so there's a good possibility that they will cross paths with each other. 3A #2 Buffalo and 3A #4 Worland will be there as well. Meanwhile, Big Piney and Pine Bluffs trade spots, and the Punchers are now at #4. Shoshoni might be asking why are they getting any love at 7-0? The answer is probably because of which teams they've played so far. 4 of their 7 wins are against 1A teams, and the 2A teams they've beaten have a combined record of 2-7.

There's a new top team in 1A. Upton bested 2-time defending champ Burlington in OT last week, and that means the Bobcats can claim the #1 ranking, heading into the winter break and Burlington drops to #2. Kaycee is up a couple of spots to #3, after beating Encampment, who drops 1 spot to #4. The final spot is a tie between Hulett and Cokeville.

Disclaimer: The polls have no official say or use on post-season positioning, and are only to be used as a measuring stick on the regular season. Please don’t read too much into the rankings.

Note: Because of the Holiday Break for most teams, the next rankings won't come out until Wednesday, January 13.

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