ºÚÁÏÉçÈë¿Ú

Horry County’s athletics teams will mostly be operating as they have been for the next two-year scheduling block.

The S.C. High School League’s realignment proposal for the 2022-2024 academic years — which will still be subject to appeals by member schools — was sent to athletics directors on Friday, approximately two months before it will become finalized. And for the nine local schools, the biggest changes likely won’t be felt until the postseason.

Their region assignments, in terms of opponents, at least, stayed almost completely the same, with only Green Sea Floyds’ region changing slightly. Maybe the biggest impact is that Region VI-4A, which has become known as the state’s most influential Class 4A region, will stay the same despite widespread belief that Darlington would need to drop down and North Myrtle Beach was on the fringe of moving up.

The starting off point for realignment is the Average Daily Membership (ADM), a method to analyze enrollment figures for each school and then pair them with like-sized schools. However, those figures are often bent to provide for proximity and other considerations.

It is not immediately known if any local schools (or those outside the area) will file appeals. Those will be heard Feb. 9 and Feb. 16 by the SCHSL’s Executive Committee and Appellate Panel, respectively.

Some of the other more notable aspects of this realignment include:

• Class 5A was reduced to 36 schools. The state’s largest classification had 40 teams for the 2020-2022 block. Ridge View was among the teams dropping down, pushing the Blazers and their powerful football and basketball programs back into Class 4A.

• Class 4A will have 41 schools; Class 3A will have 43; there will be 44 in Class 2A; and the smallest 55 will comprise Class 1A.

• Conway and its falling enrollment figures weren’t enough to drop the Tigers to Class 4A, something that has been expected in recent years. Projections provided to in November pointed to Conway all but guaranteed to drop. However, the ADM numbers are not the end-all, be-all to configuring teams.

• Beaufort, which played for the Class 4A football title earlier this month, and Oceanside Collegiate, which is considered one of the strongest overall athletics programs in the state, will each drop a classification. Beaufort will move to Class 3A, while Oceanside will fall to Class 2A.