Length of Quarters

[Jerry Baldwin]

Just reading the rule book when I came across Rule 5-5-2 describing the length of quarters. In Arkansas we play 8 minute quarters for high school senior games, 7 minute quarters for junior varsity games by mutual consent of coaches and 6 minute quarters for ninth grade games or junior high varsity games. Usually we play 5 minute quarters for 7th & 8th grade games. Article 2 of the above rule would seem to be saying the 9th grade games may be 8 minute quarters. The first sentence says "games involving only students below the ninth grade shall be played in six-minute quarters." Which would seem to be 7th & 8th grade games. The problem: 4 games are usually played back to back, 7G/7B/8G/8B, which adds quite a bit of time to the games and our game fees are usually based on the number of minutes played per quarter. I can just hear some coach wanting to play 8 minute quarters cause he's got 25 kids on the bench and one 9th grader on the squad. Anyone else doing length of quarters differently? We usually have a three game night with a junior game to start and two senior varsity games following. I have never read this rule in the manner I am reading it now.