The Catawba Ridge Copperheads will not be appealing their move to the 5A classification starting later this year.
There are 22 schools across the state that will be appealing their reclassification to the S.C. High School League later this coming week. Only five of them are public schools, the other 17 schools are charter schools such as Gray Collegiate or private schools like St. Joseph.
Catawba Ridge athletic director Rick Lewis said he talked to coaches at the school, as well as about a dozen athletic directors, and decided that going 5A in 2024 would be best for the school.
“I didn’t talk to anyone outside our walls that said we had a great reason to appeal, so we are going to embrace it,” Lewis said. “It is two years earlier than I thought, but we will be fine.”
The Copperheads would be the smallest 5A school in the state for the 2024-2025 school year. Catawba Ridge had a 45-day enrollment of 1,319 students in grades 9-11. Seniors do not count when deciding classifications.
“We prepared to put an appeal in,” Lewis said. “We put the document together. We looked at competitive balance, the safety of our kids, the infancy of our program and the geography piece. When you look at the competitive balance, we are within 100 students of 17 schools in 4A, within 200 of 27 of them and within 300 students of 38 of them. If you look at the 5A pieces, we are 538 students lower than 53 of the (5A) schools. There is a big margin there, but the big difference is they are going to split 5A.”
Lewis said that what he is being told is that the 5A classification will be split in two sections – a big 5A and little 5A, for lack of a better term – when it comes to the playoffs. There will be 24 schools that make the playoffs in big 5A and 24 schools that make the playoffs in little 5A.
“A lot of the 4A teams we compete with in the playoffs will be in that small 5A range with us,” he said. “It can change based on the sport, but let us take football for example, you will qualify within your region and then they will take the top 24 based on attendance wise and put them in the big 5A and the then rest of the 24 in the little 5A. It will be interesting to see how that stuff pans out.”
Teams that are moving up to 5A from 4A that Catawba Ridge has seen in the past in the playoffs include schools such as Eastside, Greenwood, Lugoff-Elgin, and North Myrtle Beach. Lewis added that your bigger schools like Dorman and Wando will not be crossing paths with Catawba Ridge in the playoffs until they would be similar in size. Schools like Dorman and Wando will be playing in the larger 5A playoff system, while schools like Catawba Ridge would be in the lower 5A classification. Dorman is the largest 5A school in the state with an enrollment of 3,106.
“Unless we purposely schedule them or play them in a tournament, we aren’t going to play them in the playoffs,” he said. “It will be a lot of the same folks like Eastside.”
Going to be 5A eventually
Lewis said it was decided to embrace the new 5A classification starting next school year and said that he feels the Copperheads have been very successful at 4A.
“We have won three state titles in the past eight months at 4A,” he said. “It would have been hard to talk about competitive balance when we have been one of the better schools. Since we have opened, we have been pretty successful. I don’t know the number, but we have won 40 plus region championships. Competitive balance would be hard to argue that we wouldn’t be able to compete when we have shown that we can. We just need to embrace that.”
Because Catawba Ridge is still growing in its fifth year, they don’t have enough programs to argue safety as a factor. They are still without programs like JV lacrosse and ninth grade football as teams like that can vary.
Because Catawba Ridge was the smallest in 5A, it was a certainty that even if they were to appeal moving up a classification, they would have been a 5A school come the next reclassification in 2026.
Creating regions
Proximity to other local 5A schools helped land Catawba Ridge in the 5A classification. With the Copperheads going to 5A, it is almost a given they will be in the same region as Nation Ford and Fort Mill. Fort Mill had an enrollment of 1,605 and Nation Ford had an enrollment of 1,485. Moving up to 5A with Catawba Ridge is Indian Land at an enrollment of 1,492 and coming back to 5A is Northwestern.
The region, which is scheduled to be finalized later this month, will most likely be Catawba Ridge, Fort Mill, Nation Ford, Indian Land, Northwestern, Rock Hill and possibly Clover. Regions will most likely be six to eight teams. Clover given its distance from the other schools could be put in a region closer to Gaffney and Spartanburg areas.
“If they put it together like I think they will, it will be fantastic,” Lewis said. “There will be almost no travel. It will be interesting to see what happens with Clover. Anything you move, will affect someone else.”
Lewis said he doesn’t think Catawba Ridge will struggle at 5A overall, but said that some sports may have a tougher time than others.
“Our bar is high,” he said. “Region-wise we will still be very competitive. Winning state championships is hard anyway. I don’t think we will take a lot of lumps.”
Schools making up different regions should be released by Jan. 26. An opportunity to appeal what region you are put in will be Feb. 6-8 and roughly by Feb. 12 the regions should be set for the next two years.
Mac Banks: mac@fortmillprepsports.com, @fortprep
