Realignment goes through

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association officially approved its new conference realignment, which will begin in 2009 and last through 2013. It was an expected move, but allows county teams to know for certain where they will end up for the next few years.

Here's a breakdown of the new conferences for Iredell schools (with attendance figures to the right) and a few thoughts on all three.

2A
Bandys 989
Bunker Hill 886
Draughn ----
East Burke 950
Maiden 824
Newton-Conover 771
South Iredell 991
West Caldwell 1,011

Thoughts: Rather than doing most of its traveling to Lincoln County, the Vikings will now be dispersed to the Hickory area on road trips. One of the first things that pops out to me is wrestling. South, with a great wrestling program, will get huge tests from Bandys and Newton-Conover, two state powers. Football will also be better, as will basketball, especially over at West Caldwell where Danny Anderson has the Warriors humming. Draughn has no attendance figures because it will not open until next season. Overall, this is a very tough, mostly balanced conference.

3A
Carson 1,078
East Rowan 1,246
North Iredell 1,248
South Rowan 1,103
Statesville 1,149
West Iredell 1,052
West Rowan 1,217

Thoughts: The former North Piedmont 3A will condense from 10 to seven schools, with Lake Norman, Mooresville and Northwest Cabarrus - the three largest schools - leaving. This should give the three Iredell teams more breathing room in scheduling non-conference games for all sports. West Rowan and Statesville, maybe even Carson, should be the contenders in football. Statesville's girls soccer program immediately becomes the class of the conference, and North Iredell's girls basketball team should be the favorite in 2009. Some good rivalries have emerged between Rowan and Iredell schools, and those should continue for years. West Iredell, with just a smidge over 1,000 students, is the smallest 3A school in the state and narrowly missed the cut-off of being a 2A school.

4A
Hopewell 2,757
Mallard Creek 2,000
Mooresville 1,616
Lake Norman 1,918
North Mecklenburg 2,461
Vance 2,074
West Charlotte 2,209

Thoughts: This conference is all about the attendance figures. Mooresville actually made an official request to switch conferences, citing location and overall size. The school makes a few good points. Hopewell has 70 percent more students than Mooresville, meaning it will have a much larger pool from which to pull its athletes. That's a huge disparity, and Hopewell and North Meck may grow at an even higher rate than Mooresville and Lake Norman. This conference is loaded from top to bottom, in all sports, and boasts a few of the largest schools in the state. Here's another fascinating story line to me. For the past two years, several NPC coaches have bemoaned having to play Lake Norman and Mooresville, which were easily the two biggest schools in the conference. Now it's quite the opposite as the two Iredell schools are the smallest schools and will face what so many of their opponents did over the past two years: competing against schools with more resources.