NCHSAA releases third draft of conferences for 2025-29 realignment

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association (NCHSAA) committee released their third draft of what athletic conferences would look like during the 2025-2029 realignment period on Friday. A first draft was previously released back on Dec. 18 with a second draft getting posted on Jan. 21. Here is a breakdown of how the third proposal would impact Scotland and all of the other schools in the current 3A/4A Sandhills Athletic Conference (Union Pines, Southern Lee, Lee County, Hoke County, Pinecrest and Richmond) if the plan were to get finalized:

-Scotland would be placed into the 6A/7A Conference B as a 6A school with the other 6A teams being Gray’s Creek and Terry Sanford. The 7A schools in the conference would be Cape Fear, Lumberton and Purnell Swett.

-Union Pines, Lee County and Southern Lee would join the 6A Conference 1. The rest of the conference would be composed of Harnett Central, South Johnston, Triton, West Johnston and Western Harnett.

-Hoke County, Pinecrest and Richmond would head to the 7A/8A Conference A with Richmond joining as a 7A team while Hoke County and Pinecrest would compete as 8A schools. The other teams in the conference would be Jack Britt, Overhills and Pine Forest, who would all be 7A teams.

Here is how the proposal looked for the current SAC teams back in December:

-Scotland would be placed into the 5A/6A Conference B as a 6A team. The two 5A schools in the conference would be Douglas Byrd and St. Pauls while the other 6A schools would consist of E.E. Smith, Gray’s Creek, Seventy-First, South View, Terry Sanford and Westover.

-Union Pines, Southern Lee and Lee County would all become part of the 6A Conference 1. Harnett Central, Triton and Western Harnett would make up the other schools in the conference. All six schools would be 6A teams.

-Hoke County and Pinecrest would move to the 7A/8A Conference A as 8A teams while Richmond would join the conference as a 7A school. The remaining schools in the conference would be Cape Fear, Jack Britt, Lumberton, Overhills, Pine Forest and Purnell Swett. All of them would join under the 7A classification.