Badger Conference realignment set

Conference realignment for high school football in Wisconsin goes into effect beginning in 2020. So what about the other sports that area schools like Mount Horeb and Sauk Prairie are currently offering? Their turn will come sooner than you might think. Badger Conference principals and athletic directors announced Monday a realignment plan that will cover the remainder of the sports offered by league schools to go effect in the 2021-22 school year. The conference will realign with an East/West format, which athletic directors Kolleen Nesheim of Mount Horeb and Josh Boyer of Sauk Prairie confirmed on Monday. Each conference will also be split into two pods — North and South — with Sauk Prairie being assigned to the Badger West North Division, along with Baraboo, Portage and Reedsburg, while Mount Horeb will join the Badger West South Division along with Madison Edgewood, Monroe and Oregon. “I’ve gone back and forth on this,” Nesheim said. “One of the things we talked about was finding your rivals and keeping your rivals. If you ask every coach in Mount Horeb, we’ve got a different rivalry. It depends on the sport. So for us it wasn’t so much about the rivals. “I do like that we are closer in size. That’s always been a struggle in Mount Horeb. We’ve been one of the smaller schools. If you look at the numbers and who we’ve been competing with, it’s been a struggle for a long time. I’m excited about that the most. There is a little more equity. I like this. I think it will be fun.” Sauk Prairie activities director Josh Boyer also is in favor of the change. “I think it’s a good fit for us individually and in terms of goals as far as a conference,” Boyer said. “Looking at the geographical locations and school size in terms of balance, we maintain a lot of our close-knit schools that we compete with and play with quite regularly so that fits us. “We don’t shy away from larger schools in competition. But if you look at what football has tried to do across the state, this kind of goes along those lines of trying to match up equal and like schools by geography and enrollment base.” The new alignment including enrollments from the 2018-19 school year are: Badger West — North Division: Baraboo (939), Portage (765), Reedsburg (881), Sauk Prairie (834). Badger West — South Division: Madison Edgewood (497), Monroe (723), Mount Horeb (776), Oregon (1,149). Badger East — North Division: Beaver Dam (1,067), DeForest (1,017), Watertown (1,302), Waunakee (1,303). Badger East — South Division: Fort Atkinson (957), Milton (1,126), Monona Grove (1,076), Stoughton (968). Nesheim said she believes the divisions are a good fit. “I like the groupings,” she said. “I like the fact that transportation is really cut down.