MONROE — On Sept. 30 the Badger Conference announced a conference realignment set to take place in the 2021-2022 school year.

The conference split into North and South divisions in 2001 and has had a shuffling of teams multiple times since. Most recently, Beaver Dam and Watertown were added to the conference in 2016, with Beaver Dam joining the North and Watertown the South.

“There has been much discussion over the past four years and even mentioned by the WIAA at an area meeting regarding realigning our conference,” Milton Athletic Director Brian Hammil and Milton Principal Jeremy Bilhorn said in a joint statement. “Once Watertown and Beaver Dam were moved into the Badger Conference, the principals voted to re-visit the alignment after two years.”

In the year of the 20th anniversary of the original split, the league will move to an East and West realignment with North and South subdivisions. The conference stated that moving to an East-West format takes care of a couple of issues within the conference. First, travel time will be cut across the conference. Secondly, the changes will move six of the largest schools into the East and six of the smallest schools into the West, with only Oregon and Fort Atkinson the lone wolves of enrollment in each split.

“In the Fall of 2018, the Badger Conference principals directed the athletic directors to review the alignment, taking into account geographic locations (distance each school travels), school size, and competitive balance.  In the Spring of 2019, the athletic directors brought forth the East/West Division format for consideration and it was approved by the principals at the April meeting,” Hammil and Bilhorn said.

Monroe will shoot for leagues titles in the Badger West-South against fellow current South schools Oregon and Madison Edgewood, while joining Mount Horeb from the current North. Reedsburg, Baraboo, Sauk Prairie and Portage will make up the Badger West-North.

The Badger East-South will contain Fort Atkinson, Milton, Monona Grove and Stoughton, while the Badger East-North will host Beaver Dam, Watertown, Waunakee and DeForest.

“As a conference, we feel this will improve the high school athletic experience for our student athletes and their families,” Hammil and Bilhorn said. “Over the course of the 2019-2020 school year, the athletic directors will create the specific scheduling concepts to utilize the four-school divisional format, aligning it to the specific scheduling details for each sport.”

Monroe Athletic Director Jeff Newcomer said the biggest benefit to the Cheesemakers is overall competitive equity, as Monroe will face off against more schools with enrollments similar to its own. Travel time won’t be affected as much as other schools, as Monroe is the furthest south team in the conference.

Newcomer also said that conference championships will generally be split as they are now, with an East champion and a West champion. However, for many sports, like basketball, soccer, baseball and softball, the winners of each subdivision will face off in a championship game at the end of each season, similar to the Big Ten in college football. 

Contributing factors

The new alignment was selected based on the following conclusions, when comparing the new alignment to the current alignment:

1) The East-West alignment creates a more equitable distribution of total miles traveled throughout the conference.  Reduced travel on school nights was a priority to minimize time lost from class and maximize study time for student athletes.

2) The divisional component creates more “close” contests, also decreasing travel and minimizing time missed from class.

3) The East-West Divisions better align schools according to enrollment, with the East containing seven of the eight “large” schools and the West containing seven of the eight “small” schools.  Oregon and Fort Atkinson are the exceptions.

Teams will also play their subdivision opponents twice per season, depending on the sport, and play one game against teams from neighboring divisions.

“We’ll never play DeForest, Waunakee, Beaver Dam or Watertown” during the regular season, Newcomer said of most sports. Those four schools will be in the East-North division, the opposite of Monroe, and based on travel will no longer play each other in league games.

The tennis and cross country set up will stay the same, but wrestling will move to an East-West format.

“When we first came up with the idea we thought it was too much of a change. But the more we talked about it, the more it made sense,” Newcomer said.

All-conference selections will be strictly East-West, just as they are now with North-South

The conference realignment will not affect the WIAA’s football realignment plan that begins in the 2020 fall season, but if the WIAA opts to make changes to the football format, as they suggested they might do every two years, the Badger conference may be balanced out enough for the Cheesemakers to rejoin. Right now, Monroe will play football in the Rock Valley Conference in 2020.

“I almost wish we would have done this a few years ago. Maybe it would have changed things a bit for us,” Newcomer said.