By MICHAEL BOYLAN
mboylan@thecitizennews.com

Besides when Barnes and Noble will open, perhaps the one question that has been on the forefront of a lot of people's minds in the community is, “What's going on with region realignment?”

A good question with one heck of an answer. Last week, school administrators, athletic directors and the Georgia High School Association sat down and hammered out what is to be the alignment for Region 4-AAAAA. The region will feature 16 teams, involving schools from Fayette, Coweta, Clayton and Henry counties. It also includes Evans High School, which is not really in the surrounding area.

Football will be split into two sub-regions, A and B. Sub-region A will feature Eagle's Landing, McIntosh, Morrow, Mt. Zion, Jonesboro, Newnan, Riverdale, Starr's Mill and Stockbridge. B features East Coweta, Evans, Fayette County, Forest Park, Henry County, Jonesboro, Lovejoy and North Clayton. Each school plays all of the other teams in its sub-region, plus three crossover games with teams from the other sub-region.

The baseball region will be split into sub-regions as well, east and west. The east sub-region has Eagle's Landing, Forest Park, Henry County, Evans, Jonesboro, Mt. Zion, Jonesboro, Morrow and Stockbridge, while the west features East Coweta, Fayette County, McIntosh, Lovejoy, Starr's Mill, Newnan, North Clayton and Riverdale. The scheduling will be similar to football.

Basketball teams will play a full region schedule of 15 games with a region tournament at the end of the season. Teams can play 25 games and the region tournament, allowing for some pick-up games and a holiday tournament. Every team in the region will make the region tournament with seedings based on a win-loss record.

All of the other sports will follow the sub-region described for baseball, which is a geographical alignment. The alignment of these sports could be discussed and voted on differently in the fall. Soccer is the sport that would be affected most. Fayette County, McIntosh and Starr's Mill would all be in the same sub-region, meaning one team might not make it to the playoffs despite being a stronger team than one of the teams from the other sub-region.

There is still much to be discussed and decided upon. Region 4-AAAAA is the largest in the state and was to include 18 teams. The re-alignment seems to promise an exciting 2000-2001 athletic season that is sure to invigorate the community as well as excite fans, players and coaches.

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