After two years of anticipation, the Waukegan Bulldogs are now an official member of the North Suburban Conference (NSC). Vernon Hills has left the NSC and replaces Waukegan in the Central Suburban League (CSL).
In past years, the NSC has consisted of 14 schools, split into two divisions of seven teams. The divisions were based off of the size of the schools; the North Suburban Prairie Division consisted of the smaller schools and the North Suburban Lake Division had the larger (including Libertyville).
However, beginning this year, the NSC will be just one division consisting of eight teams. This is the result of six Prairie schools collectively agreeing to leave; those schools are North Chicago, Lakes, Antioch, Round Lake, Grant and Wauconda. The six schools decided to band together and create their own conference, calling it the North Lake County Conference (NLCC).
This created an issue for Vernon Hills, who, although welcome to remain in the NSC, would be the smallest school in the conference by a large margin. There are currently 1,316 students enrolled at Vernon Hills, which is as little as one third the size of other schools, such as Warren (4,262 students). Vernon Hills elected not to remain in the conference and search elsewhere.
In order to balance the conference, Waukegan was invited unanimously by the NSC board to join. The Bulldogs, who had been considering leaving the CSL since early 2002 due to issues with playing opponents who were from towns far away, accepted the invitation.
Vernon Hills was the only team in the Prairie division not invited to join the NLCC, so they requested to join the CSL as a replacement for Waukegan. The Cougars were accepted and are now a member of the CSL.
So what does this change mean for Libertyville? Not much.
The biggest change is that the Wildcats will not be playing against the Cougars anymore unless they are out-of-conference games. Instead, the Wildcats will play yearly games against Waukegan.
Even though the NSC lost six schools, all of the schools that left were in the Prairie Division, meaning that the Libertyville teams only played against a couple of these schools, if any at all, each year.
“Most of the schedules were not affected that greatly,” stated Libertyville Athletic Director Briant Kelly in an interview through email.
An additional non-conference game may need to be scheduled for some sports, Mr. Kelly said, but that change will have a minimal effect on the overall schedules.
“For some sports, the number of conference games didn’t even change,” Mr. Kelly said.
One example of the little impact the conference split will have on Libertyville athletics is in basketball. In past years, the basketball team would play 12 conference games and two cross-over games (matches against teams from the Prairie Division). This year, the team will simply play 14 conference games.
The changes to the NSC were drastic, but their impact on the Libertyville athletic teams will be minimal. Outside of playing Waukegan more often, not much will change for the Wildcats. The new conference structure is also likely to stay put for a while; the last time there was a change before this year was in 2005.
