Southwest Illinois high school conference shuffle: Who is going where?

After the 2025-26 school year, the Highland Bulldogs and Waterloo Bulldogs will be in new homes as schools are leaving the Mississippi Valley Conference.

The conference began 54 years ago and currently has Highland, Triad, Mascoutah, Civic Memorial, Waterloo and Jersey high schools as members. It is breaking up due to enrollment shifts at schools such as Triad and Mascoutah.

Civic Memorial in Bethalto announced Thursday the school would leave the Valley for the Cahokia Conference after next year.

“I think there’s an excitement amongst the coaches understanding that probably some sort of change was on the horizon,” Civic Memorial athletic director Todd Hannaford said. “We started looking at this stuff this year and had several meetings with the coaches and looking at their thoughts and mindsets, and so I believe there’s probably a nice level of excitement.”

Jersey Community High School in Jerseyville is also moving to the Cahokia Conference. Jersey athletic director Rob Steinkuhler said that the invitation to join Cahokia was introduced at its Feb. 20 district board meeting and the recommendation will be to accept the Cahokia invitation.

“At our last board meeting, our superintendent presented our conference options to our board with the recommendation that we accept the invitation they’re offering from the Cahokia, and the plan is to vote on (and accept that) Steinkuhler said. The Jerseyville board will vote on the move during its March 20 meeting.

Jersey had an invitation to join the South Seven Conference but travel concerns made the Cahokia a more attractive option for the Panthers.

“So, looking at our options, and driving down to Carbondale, Mount Vernon, Centralia, it just makes a lot more sense to help our students be successful academically and just in terms of other schools in the Cahokia compared to the South Seven school-size, we just align so much better with the Cahokia,” Steinkuhler said.

Conference changes

Mascoutah and Triad High Schools, which are both growing rapidly, have already announced plans to leave the MVC for the Southwestern Conference in the fall of 2026.

Highland has been offered a place in the South Seven Conference for 2026. Highland athletic director Clint Hamilton said the district is mulling that offer and looking at all potential options including a possible invite to the Southwestern Conference.

“We’re kind of in a holding pattern, just kind of waiting to see what our options look like over the next week to two weeks with the Southwestern Conference and the South Seven Conference and just kind of in a waiting pattern to see how all the chips fall,” Hamilton said. We’re just kind of hanging out and seeing where everything plays out and going from there.”

While Highland will wait, Waterloo will be joining Civic Memorial and Jerseyville with a move to the Cahokia Conference in 2026.

Waterloo joined the Mississippi Valley Conference in 1998 and will be back in the Cahokia Conference for the first time in 29 years.

Familiarity with many schools in the conference made Cahokia a great fit for Waterloo High School, said Waterloo athletic director Tim Gould.

“From a Waterloo perspective, we have a lot of rivalries already with several of the teams in the Cahokia Conference,” Gould said. “You consider Columbia and Freeburg, two of our larger rivals, and Red Bud is right down the road from us as well, so we looked at it as a way to really emphasize those rivalries with the matchups we already have existing and Jerseyville, CM going into the league also gives some familiarity with teams we enjoy competing with.”

The move to the Cahokia Conference is expected to be voted on during the district’s March 17 board meeting.

This story was originally published March 1, 2025 at 5:30 AM.