Realignment in the Lake Conference

John Millea reporting today on the StarTrib preps blog that the new Chanhassen High School opening in fall 2009 will join the Lake Conference. No shock there as it makes for 12 teams which will make scheduling far easier. Here's how a realignment into 2 divisions (which seems almost certain) might look.

East: Apple Valley, Eastview, Lakeville N and S, Eagan, Rosemount
West: Chaska, Chanhassen, Eden Prairie, Jefferson, Kennedy, Burnsville

The East is a nice division with 3 natural rivalries. The west is tougher to create as Burnsville is out of place, but they made more sense to move west than any of the 6 teams in the east. Jefferson/Kennedy stay together along with the 3 western schools.

This is a mess for football, but for basketball it would mean 16 conference games. That would be 10 games in division for home and home vs each division foe and single games vs the other division. Those would be split 3 home and 3 away. No byes necessary and it gives the teams 4 more non-conference games to play. That doesn't seem like much, but remember now that if these teams play a 3 game holiday tournament, they only have 3 other games to play. Put that with the byes in the schedule and right now these teams are playing conference games right away in December.

Millea also mentions the Classic Lake dissolving which has been a subject for a while. These teams have tried for a while to get back in the Lake without success. The Lake will have 12 teams and be happy so don't be surprised if the MSHSL has to get involved in the end. Last August I wrote a realignment plan for all the metro schools. It doesn't include East Ridge or Chanhassen but they could be slotted in my plan. Read the AAAA plan here. How I'd do AAA, AA and A is here.