Moving up from 1A to 2A is a big deal and this year CSD made the move. For nine years  CSD has been in the NCHSAA (North Carolina High School Athletic Association) 1A division, which is the smallest twenty-five percent of the state’s high schools. 

“The problems are biggest in the 1A level and the 4A level because of the range of those admissions…There are really small schools in 1A that make it hard to compete with a school like us…Then the 4A is tough because some 4A levels are maybe fifteen-hundred kids and some like Myer’s Park may have four thousand kids,” said Jay Martin, CSD’s athletic director. This often makes the competition unfair because of the range of sizes between the schools in the specific classification.

CSD’s average daily membership (ADM) dictates what size classification we are labeled under. CSD has had 515 high school students in the past but this year we are hovering around 520. This number puts us in the bottom twenty-five percent of the schools of North Carolina but we were moved up to 2A because every four years the athletic conferences are redrawn. NCHSAA does this because new schools have trouble finding an athletic conference to compete in or schools change sizes. When the new conferences were redrawn we were moved from The Piedmont Athletic Conference and were reallotted into Catawba Shores Conference which is a mixed conference (1A and 2A schools are present).  Christ the King, Langtree Charter, and Mountain Island Charter are the 1A schools while Pine Lake Preparatory, Lincoln Charter, and us (CSD) are 2A. During this change, we were placed in 2A and while we can petition the change, the school felt it was a good thing. “There were 1A schools that we competed against that just did not give us enough competition,” said Martin. “The old saying [applies]: the same tide lifts all boats. I think we play better competition, … it makes us better competition.” 

The athletes feel this new change most in the travel. The out-of-conference schools are often farther away with longer bus rides. “It is a bad time for us because we have a shortage of bus drivers and with COVID it’s not really good being in the buses for longer periods of time,” Martin explained.

The conference change also affects football in a specific way. Because our conference changes, only four schools grouped with us host football teams which makes fielding a football schedule difficult. So, as a remedy and part of our appeal to the NCHSAA, CSD’s AD wrote to the board and asked to be placed with more schools that play football. The state’s response was to group those four Catawba Shore’s teams and three teams in Winston Salem together; Bishop McGuinness, Carver, who we’re playing on homecoming, and Winston Salem Prep. 

The state competition is the biggest change. Now, whenever a CSD sports team competes in states, we will do it under the 2A banner. This means new, larger schools (26%-50% ADM of North Carolina high schools) with better athletics. However, many of the sports we have succeeded in, swimming, for example, or lacrosse, already compete in a combined 1A, 2A championship, and a 1, 2, and 3A level respectively.

An interesting fact: because Catawba Shores Conference is both 1A and 2A, our conference could have two state championship titles in the same sport at the same time. One in 1A and the other in 2A.

During our nine-year stint in the 1A level, CSD won seven team state championships. Cross country, volleyball, men’s golf, and women’s soccer are responsible for those wins. Some with several titles. CSD also has individual state champions in tennis, swimming, and several in track. 

Now, CSD hopes to clinch more athletic state titles in the 2A division. Only time will tell.