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MIDVALE — Utah high school sports will be realigned regionally, at least in the state's largest classification.
After a meeting of the Utah High School Activities Association's board of trustees held Thursday, in addition to several rounds of public feedback, the board finalized a new realignment cycle beginning with the fall of 2023 through the 2025 academic year.
The biggest change in the 6A classification involves Corner Canyon and 6A newcomers and reigning 5A football champion Lehi, which will essentially swap regions from the original recommendations.
The Chargers are headed to Region 2 alongside Bingham, Copper Hills, Herriman, Mountain Ridge and Riverton; and the Pioneers will move to Region 3 with American Fork, Lone Peak, Pleasant Grove, Skyridge and Westlake.
Davis and Weber county-based Region 1 remained unchanged with Weber, Fremont, Layton, Syracuse, Davis and Farmington.
The original proposal called for Lehi and Westlake to be placed in the old Region 3 (now Region 2), and Corner Canyon to remain in Region 4 (now Region 3) — giving 6A regions of five, six and seven regions. That was realigned after representatives from American Fork, Lone Peak, Pleasant Grove, Skyridge and Corner Canyon in Region 4 petitioned the UHSAA to even out the regions last month, as first reported by the Standard-Examiner and confirmed by KSL.com.
The primary goal was to align all three regions with an equal number of teams, officials from the UHSAA said.
The 4A and 5A classifications will be played among four regions in all sports, while 3A will feature three regions for every sport and activity but football; 2A will have four regions for every activity but football; and 1A will include four regions for every activity but football, with a small carve-out amongst football-playing schools in the recently re-introduced eight-player division.
In all, 17 teams from 11 different schools were approved to move to a higher classification in a single sport — most notably, Layton Christian Academy to 4A in boys' soccer and boys' basketball and Orem in boys' basketball and baseball.
The Eagles will play in the primarily Salt Lake County-centric 5A Region 10 in soccer and the mostly Utah County-centric 5A Region 8 in basketball. The Tigers, meanwhile, will join 5A Region 7 in boys' basketball, baseball and football, while playing in the newly aligned 4A Region 8 alongside Mountain View, Payson, Provo, Timpanogos and Uintah in most other activities.
Other single sports moving up include American Heritage boys' basketball (3A Region 14), American Leadership baseball and softball (3A Region 14), Jordan baseball (5A Region 6), Juan Diego baseball (4A Region 10) and boys' basketball (5A Region 4), Murray baseball (5A Region 4), Park City boys' and girls' lacrosse (5A Region 6), and Salt Lake Academy boys' and girls' soccer (6A Region 2).
Four teams from three schools will play as UHSAA-approved independents from 2023-25: Mount Vernon boys' basketball, Wasatch Academy boys' basketball and Salt Lake Academy boys' and girls' basketball.
