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By Michael Boytim
mboytim@altoonamirror.com
The next step for a potential super conference in the area that would begin during the 2023-2024 school year is scheduled for next week.
The Laurel Highlands Athletic Conference will vote on expanding to a multiple-region league with as many as 28 teams involved.
"The LHAC will meet on Monday, March 7 to formally vote on expansion of the LHAC," LHAC chairman and Somerset athletic director Scott Close said. "If that vote is successful, then each invited school district will place the formalization of joining the LHAC on their next board agenda."
Bellwood-Antis, one of the invited school districts, had a motion to approve a move into the LHAC on its last board agenda, but the item was tabled until the LHAC's vote on March 7. Instead, the school sent a letter of interest to the conference.
Following that Bellwood board meeting, the school was represented at an Inter-County Conference meeting, B-A's current conference.
"We asked Bellwood to explain," Executive Director of the ICC and Northern Bedford athletic director Jeff Batzel said. "Charlie Burch, their athletic director, read a prepared statement, and said he preferred not to take any questions. The take from the group is that they are probably 90 percent if not 99 percent gone."
Batzel said the ICC is taking no official action at this time.
"We're on hold until we get an official decision from Bellwood," Batzel said. "We've got some ideas, but I would rather not speculate until we know for sure what Bellwood is doing. That should come in the next month, I think at their next board meeting.
"Technically, we can hold them for 18 months, which already puts them into the 2023 football season," Batzel explained. "This other league is planning to start in 2023, so not that we would hold them, but they need to make a decision so we can redraw our schedules. We're going to have to re-do everything."
Bellwood-Antis would be the first team to exit the ICC. District 9's Curwensville is playing in the conference for the first time this season. Other leagues which have members tied to the expansion of the LHAC such as the WestPAC and Mountain League have been far less consistent.
"In the 17 years of the ICC as an all-sports conference, we have never lost a member school," Batzel said. "We have been the most stable of the leagues, in that respect."