Realigning regions

Mascots from schools in the Georgia High School Association 8-AAAAA region are displayed in an illustration. For the upcoming 2020-21 school year, Clarke Central High School athletics will still be participating in region 8-AAAAA, but with many changes. According to CCHS head varsity girls soccer coach Chris Hulse, during the tenure of the current region, size has been a major difference than past and future years. “Region games are set by (GHSA). Region games are the ones that impact (state tournaments),” Hulse said. “The only thing that’s been different for the past several years about the region has been that it’s been smaller than it has been in years past. There was a window of time where we had an 11 team region, and so 11 region games or ten region games because we were the eleventh team, left a lot of, a lot of decisions were made in play, if that makes sense.” Mascots listed above: Apalachee, Clarke Central, Eastside Greenbrier, Jackson County, Johnson, Gainesville, Loganville and Walnut Groove. Illustration by Lilli Sams

Clarke Central High School athletics, along with many other high schools in Georgia, will be competing against many new region teams for the 2020-21 school year.

In the fall of 2019, the Georgia High School Association finalized region alignments for the 2020-22 school years. With these changes, Clarke Central High School athletics will still be participating in region 8-AAAAA.

Since the 2016-17 school year, CCHS has been grouped in the same region as Cedar Shoals High School, Buford High School, Loganville High School, Walnut Grove High School and Johnson High School.

According to CCHS athletic director Dr. Jon Ward, these groupings are determined based on specific factors.

“The Georgia High School Association groups high schools by their school enrollment, and in the state there are seven classifications, meaning seven groups of schools that have similar enrollments,” Ward said. “For each classification, the state is divided up into eight geographic (groups) and they’re called regions.”

CCHS head varsity football coach David Perno says that playing in region games are crucial to the team’s success.

“(Region games) carry the most magnitude of all the regular-season games without question,” Perno said. “For us, our first goal was to win the city championship, which (means) we need to beat (CSHS) and that’s extremely important but the last few years they’ve been in the region, so it was twice as important. Then the next goal is (to) win the region championship.”

According to the GHSA website, with the new region alignments, four teams will be added, and BHS and CSHS will be leaving the 8-5A region due to the reassessment of enrollment at each school.

“Obviously, one of the teams that we will no longer have in our region is Buford, who is a perennial power of most all the sports on the male and female side. However, they’re not strong in cross country and soccer,” Ward said. “In our new region, I think we’ll have schools that have strength in soccer and cross country and, you know, might not be as good in say football, or basketball or softball. So it will have some effect.”

CCHS head girls varsity soccer coach Chris Hulse believes these changes may only have a small impact on his team.

“(With the region changes) in some ways, (region play will) not really be different and in some ways, it will change things with what will be an eight-team region now, so seven region games, will leave a little bit more of a challenge,” Hulse said. “When we look at an eight-team region where you’re playing seven region games, it’s going to require a little bit more and then when you look at the makeup of our region, region 8-5A for girls soccer in particular for a number of years has been one of the toughest regions in the state.”

According to CCHS junior and varsity girls soccer player Lilly Stevens, the new region will give an opportunity to see a new skill set.

“The teams in our current region — most of us are pretty much the same level. Like Loganville (and) Buford, those are always big games, and there’s a variation of skill for this (new) region,” Stevens said.

CCHS junior and varsity girls basketball player Nakia Rucker feels that new competitors in the region will give the team a chance to see more change.

“(The new region) will give us a chance to, I know we really wanted to beat (BHS) before they left the region, but it’ll give us a chance to see how it is without playing Buford. I think the rankings will change now that Buford’s gone. Makes me wonder who will be number one now, but I’m hoping it’s us,” Rucker said.

But it’s not just CCHS that will be impacted by these changes, other schools are also being affected by GHSA changes. North Oconee High School assistant boys basketball coach Joshua Dillard believes that with the addition of teams to NOHSs’ region there will be an extra challenge.

“(If) you looked at our previous region, in basketball, football and a lot of sports, you’re looking at a five team region. So in your regular season, if you end up in the top four, in basketball you’re guaranteed a trip to that state tournament, nothing can be taken for granted anymore,” Dillard said. “With the introduction to more teams and seven or eight teams in a region. It just means that every game is that much more important and I think that’s something that will welcome challenge where everything has to be earned. There’s nothing set in stone.”

With the addition of Eastside High School, Jackson County Comprehensive High School, Greenbrier High School and Apalachee High School, CCHS varsity football safety Tyreon Millsap, a junior, is concerned that the season may lack a competitive edge.

“I think the addition of more teams will make the season less competitive because I’ve seen the teams that (have) been added to the region, and they’re not Buford,” Millsap said. “Us having a lot of region games that means we have less non-region games. That means we get to schedule less people, less competitive games cause we try to make our non-region games the more competitive games.”

With the loss of CSHS from the region, Perno believes that it may take tension off of the Classic City Championship game.

“I mean, because (the new region) will take some of the pressure off (the CCHS vs CSHS game). It’s already big enough and then when you throw in it being a region game I think it was tough on both of us, (CSHS varsity football head coach Leroy Ryals) and myself,” Perno said. “I think there’s gonna be more of a sense we play the first game of the year, the show, it’s going to get people out to see what we got, and that’s a good thing.”

Similar to the CCHS and CSHS rivalry, according to Winder-Barrow High School assistant boys basketball coach Kevin Mobley, WBHS will be losing their rival.

“I think coming down with the most recent realignment is you’re going to see rivalries now split among regions. So that’ll be a new component,” Mobley said. “(Next year our region will be) with (BHS), Central Gwinnett (High School), Dacula (High School), Lanier (High School), Shiloh (High School) and Habersham Central (High School). That means that our rival Appalachee is moving to 5A with Clarke Central. So that can have a couple of different effects. It could lead to some schools maybe losing their rivalries, but what I would foresee for, say, Winder-Barrow and Apalachee, Clarke Central and a Cedar Shoals rivalry, it’s so rich and it brings the community out, I would see them adding those games as non-region (games).”

According to Woodward Academy, a current 4-AAAA and as of the 2020-21 school year a 3-AAAAA private school, track and field coach Scott Crook, this reclassification comes with a new rule that may negatively impact private and public schools.

“(GHSA has) implemented a, what they call a multiplier which requires you to count each student that is outside of your prescribed zone as two students, and it doesn’t just apply to private schools, it also applies to public schools,” Crook said. “Probably 80%, 90% of our student body comes outside of what would be our prescribed school zone. Let’s say that we have a student body and uppers close to the body of 1000 students, which might put us in 3A, but with that multiplier it counts us now at about 1600 units, which bumps us up a couple of classifications to the 5A.”

WA varsity boys basketball player Andrew Nye, a junior and point and shooting guard, believes that these changes are positive especially pertaining to travel time.

“I’m actually looking forward to (the region realignment) because our old region was very spread out and we have to drive an hour and a half sometimes for games and the new region for this year, I think the furthest drive is going to be 30 minutes maybe, so I’m looking forward to that,” Nye said. “I’m just excited to compete with whoever it’s against. We’re ready to compete.”

Overall, Ward believes that these region rezonings are the largest changes that have been made over the course of his tenure.

“This is the biggest change we’ve experienced since I’ve been here. There’s been a kind of a core group of us that’s always remained together, but this year is really new,” Ward said. “Us and Loganville we’ve been together for, you know, over a decade in the same region, but the schools that were with us at one point in time, they all have either grown in size or decreased in size and so there’s a lot of new faces when you look around the room.”

Story by Gretchen Hinger
Package by Ireland McCage