Board of directors to hear first and second readings of alignments on Feb. 28 and April 17
The South Dakota High School Activities Association has released its proposed alignments for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
The first reading of the proposed alignments will be presented at the SDHSAA Board of Directors meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 28. The board will hear the second reading at its meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Apri 17.
Changes Proposed For Area Teams
In football, De Smet is moving up to Class 9AA and Redfield and Waubay-Summit (formerly part of the Dakota Hills coop in football that played in Class 11B) are moving down to 9AA.
Ipswich, North Central and Potter County will got to 9A with Iroquois-Lake Preston, Northwestern and Wilmot in Class 9B.
In boys-girls basketball and football, Britton-Hecla will move back to Class A (Region 1A) and Tiospa Zina and Waubay-Summit (Region 1B), Estelline-Hendricks (Region 2B) and North Central (6B) are dropping down to Class B.
In gymnastics, the proposed alignments call for Harrisburg and Yankton to move from Region 2AA to Region 1AA. Watertown and Aberdeen Central will stay in Region 2AA.
In boys and girls golf, Edmunds Central, Faulkton Area and Ipswich would move to Region 1B and Castlewood, Deuel, Hamlin and Hitchcock-Tulare to Region 2B with Mobridge-Pollock dropping down from Class A into Region 5B.
In wrestling, Milbank would switch from Region 3A to 1A and Madison would move to 3A. Sisseton will drop back down to Class B and join Region 1B with Kingsbury County and Sioux Valley moving from Region 1B to 2B.
In cross country, Britton-Hecla goes to Class A (Region 1); Estelline-Hendricks, Tiospa Zina and Waubay-Summit down to Class B (Region 1) and McLaughlin and North Central down to Class B (Region 4).
Esteelline-Hendricks, McLaughlin, North Central, Tiospa Zina, Waubay-Summit and WIlmot will be Class B in track and field. New softball teams included Kingsbury County and Mobridge-Pollock in Class B.
Tea Area is moving up to Class AA for most sports.
More: Proposed rule change would have allowed any school to drop down to the next lower classification
Other Notable Details
The proposed alignments call for nine Class 11AAA, 11 Class AA, 14 Class 11A, 24 Class 11B and 23 teams apiece in each of nine-man (Class AA, A and B) class in football.
Basketball will have 20 Class AA, 56 Class A and 80 Class B teams.
Wrestling will have 35 teams in Class A and 64 in Class B.
For more, visit https://www.sdhsaa.com/proposed-athletics-alignments/.
Proposed Alignments: https://www.sdhsaa.com/proposed-athletics-alignments/
Follow Watertown Public Opinion sports reporter Roger Merriam on X (formerly known as Twitter) @PO_Sports or email: rmerriam@thepublicopinion.com
This article originally appeared on Watertown Public Opinion: New high school athletic alignments proposed for South Dakota
