Three Burke teams back together in NCHSAA 2025-29 realignment

It appears that Burke County’s high school sports programs may soon be coming back together in a big way.

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) on Wednesday morning announced the first draft of its proposed conferences for the 2025-29 statewide realignment.

And after being split into four different conferences over the past three-plus school years, Burke County’s five high schools would share just three leagues, with three Burke County Public Schools’ prep programs in the same league, under the first draft released by the state.

East Burke (4A), Draughn (3A), and Patton (3A) are all slated as members of the proposed (and yet unnamed) “3A/4A Conference F” in the first draft. Those three schools were each members of the Northwestern Foothills 2A Athletic Conference (NWFAC) from 2017-21 before being separated three different ways from 2021-25.

The other members of the proposed 3A/4A league include Hibriten (4A), R-S Central (4A), Chase (3A), East Rutherford (3A), and West Caldwell (3A).

Freedom (6A) remains in a six-team split conference alongside many traditional rivals in Wednesday’s initial draft. The rest of the league would include Alexander Central, South Caldwell, St. Stephens, Watauga, and McDowell, which would be the only 7A league member.

And NCSSM-Morganton remains in the 1A class. The Dragons’ newly proposed league also includes fellow 1As Carolina International, Jackson Day, and Valor Prep, plus 2A schools Queen’s Grant and Sugar Creek Charter.

According to the NCHSAA’s realignment committee, Wednesday’s first draft of realignment will be followed by a revised draft expected in February 2025. The final draft is expected to be announced in March 2025.

Realignment history

After Burke County’s consolidation of the 1970s, Freedom and East Burke for years were both members of the NCHSAA’s Western 4A and later Northwestern 4A conferences.

Shortly after Patton and Draughn opened in the 2000s, Freedom and Patton shared two separate leagues (South Mountain 2A/3A, Northwestern 3A/4A) as fellow members of the 3A classification from 2009-2017, while East Burke and Draughn were both 2A schools and also were members of the same two leagues (Catawba Valley 2A, South Mountain 2A/3A) during that span.

In 2017, Patton dropped from 3A to 2A, moving PHS alongside Draughn and EB into the geographically- and competitively-friendly NWFAC 2A while Freedom remained a 3A member of the NWC 3A/4A.

In 2021, Draughn dropped from 2A to 1A while Patton and EB remained 2A, meaning that in theory, all three of those schools or at least two of them would figure to still share a league.

However, the NCHSAA split the schools into the three current conferences — Patton in the Mountain Foothills 7 1A/2A, Draughn in the Western Highlands 1A/2A, and EB in the Catawba Valley 2A.

While EB’s travel for league games remained reasonable over the past four years, Draughn’s and Patton’s increased drastically, and Freedom’s increased some as well.

Burke County’s four current leagues span school districts with counties bordering Virginia, South Carolina, and Tennessee and (often mid-week) destinations as far as Rosman, Brevard, Hendersonville, Mountain Heritage, Madison, and Ashe County.

Though NCSSM-Morganton would travel to the Charlotte and Concord areas for all of its league road games, travel would shrink and traditional rivalries would be rekindled for the four BCPS high schools under the first draft of realignment, if it goes into effect in August.

Before then, though, all member schools have an opportunity to appeal their conference placement.

Why this one’s so big

The current NCHSAA realignment is unlike any before it since the state is moving from four classifications up to eight classifications beginning in August.

As announced over the summer, the largest 32 schools in the state will make up the 8A class, with the remaining member schools as evenly divided as possible among the lower seven classes (with roughly 60 schools apiece).

Schools each learned their new classifications last month when the NCHSAA announced average daily membership (ADM) numbers, which are the sole determining factor for placement in this realignment (unlike in the previous one).

For now, there is no indication that the currently proposed leagues will run for a shorter duration than the NCHSAA’s traditional four years. However, the NCHSAA’s bylaw task force committee this past spring recommended to the NCHSAA that conferences be redrawn every two years due to more schools likely changing classes with double the number of current classes in place. That topic appears likely to resurface as first-time issues arise given double the number of classes.

Also of note, the NCHSAA had hinted that split conferences would remain in place for the upcoming realignment and even left open the option of three-way split leagues for the first time ever.

That became a reality on Wednesday as the first draft contained seven three-way split leagues, mostly among the lower classes but also including one 6A/7A/8A split.

NOTE: Visit shorturl.at/qnsqV for the complete list of NCHSAA 2025-29 proposed conferences.