Neil Sedaka had it right. Breaking up is hard to do.

While the focus of high school football this weekend might be on those teams trying to earn their way into next week's state playoffs, there is also a melancholy end of an era occurring in Northern New Mexico.

This is the final weekend of play before realignment in 2010 tears apart one of the state's most successful districts in football over the past nine seasons — District 2AAA.

"It's kind of sad in a lot of ways," said St. Michael's head football coach Joey Fernandez. "There's been some great games played in our district and that's going to be taken away. A lot of those games went down to the final buzzer and had so much emotion and so much riding on the game, that just added to it all."

Starting next year, St. Michael's will join Pojoaque Valley, Santa Fe Indian School, Albuquerque Academy and Albuquerque Hope Christian in the newly created, and far-less football-heavy District 5AAA.

District 2AAA will include Raton, Las Vegas Robertson, West Las Vegas and Taos.

The realignment isn't merely diminishing Northern New Mexico rivalries, it's bringing to an end a decade that saw Class AAA football feature an intense North/South rivalry between District 2 and District 4 (Lovington, Portales and Ruidoso).

Since 2000, when the New Mexico Activities Association expanded to five classifications, there have been:

• Nine AAA football champions — five from District 4, four from District 2 (District 2 has won three of five head-to-head with District 4).

• 18 state finalists — 10 from District 4, seven from District 2.

• 36 semifinalists — 16 from District 2, 14 from District 4.

"There have been some great battles," said Lovington coach Jamie Quiñones. "We've won some, we've lost some, but I can tell you football in the north has improved so much since that district came around over the last nine years."

Raton coach Brock Walton said the strength of the district has helped him rebuild his program.

"I remember when Raton was always in the middle of things," said Walton, whose Tigers are Ranked No. 2 in the state this week behind No. 1 Lovington. "But then when the mine closed down around 2000-01, it took a big hit on the whole community, including athletics. But when our kids saw Robertson and St. Mikes going at it and winning titles, it made them realize they could do the same thing."

St. Michael's has already put Raton and Robertson on its 2010 nondistrict schedule, but nobody is under the illusion the games will carry the same weight.

"Hopefully down the road, they'll revisit this," Fernandez said. "I think its going to hurt at the gate and with all those type of things that go into it."

Quiñones agrees. The Lovington-Artesia rivalry is one of the oldest in the state. While the teams have played each other every season since 2000 when they were placed in different classifications (Lovington in AAA, Artesia in AAAA), it hasn't been the same.

"Our kids still get excited for it," Quiñones said, "but I'd be lying if I said it hasn't lost something. The same with those St. Michael's-Robertson and those Raton games, it can't help but lose a little bit of that luster for now on."

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3060 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com.