Out of the six schools in The Sun-Times coverage area, two will be changing conferences according to the 2010-12 realignment released by the Arkansas Activities Association.
Pangburn’s enrollment dropped the Tigers from 3A to 2A, where they will compete in the 2-2A conference against Bradford, Cedar Ridge, Cotter, Salem, White County Central and Quitman, which is the other area school that is switching conferences but the Bulldogs are only changing for basketball.
Pangburn’s drop means they will no longer play county rival Rose Bud in conference play but they will now face off with Quitman, which could turn into an interesting rivalry.
Quitman will still compete in the 5-2A conference in football, which includes Bigelow, Conway Christian, Hector, Little Rock Lutheran, Magnet Cove, Mountain Pine, Ola and Poyen. Magnet Cove and Poyen are new to the conference, taking the place of Danville and Conway Christian.
Rose Bud football and basketball will stay in the 2-3A conference but they have new members for both sports. The 2-3A basketball league consists of Bald Knob, Barton, Brinkley, Harding Academy and Riverview. The 2-3A football league members are Arkansas Baptist, Barton, Brinkley, Episcopal Collegiate, Harding Academy, Mayflower and Riverview. Arkansas Baptist will be a new foe for the Ramblers in football while Bald Knob will be a new opponent in basketball.
West Side and Concord both remain in the 1A-2 South conference for basketball, which has added Midland and Southside Bee Branch while dropping Cushman and Bradford, who moved up a classification. Other schools competing in league play against the Eagles and Pirates are Rural Special, Shirley and Timbo.
Heber Springs will remain in the 2-4A conference but the Panthers will have one new opponent, plus another that moved and is back again. Newport is coming back into the 2-4A while DeWitt is moving to the 8-4A. Also, Cave City is moving up from 3A to 4A, replacing Bald Knob.
The Panthers and the rest of the 2-4A conference caught the toughest break in the area with a fairly even exchange of Bald Knob and Cave City but Newport is usually more competitive in every sport than DeWitt.
It should be interesting to see how the new leagues shake out but we still have one more season of the same format and the AAA can make changes to their new alignment at a meeting in October.
(Will Gilbert is sports editor for The Sun-Times. Send comments to sports@thesuntimes.com)
