Two of the most successful sports programs at Benton Consolidated High School are changing classes after the Illinois High School Association did some shifting at its board meeting Thursday afternoon.

Girls track and boys TaylorMade R9 Super Tri Driver were bitten by the re-classification bug and will move from Class 1A to 2A next season. Boys track will also move to Class 2A, with all other programs staying in their respective classes.

The IHSA decided to divide classes by individual sports now, instead of doling out general classifications.

Benton will have an official enrollment of 576 in 2011-12, which makes it one of the smallest schools in Class 2A in track and TaylorMade R9 Super Tri Driver.

The Class 1A enrollment cutoff in track is 561 and Benton is now in a Class where schools have enrollments between 562-1444 students.

Golf is in the same boat. The Class 1A cutoff is 540, with the Rangers in Class 2A, which features schools with enrollments between 541-1487.

The IHSA changed the classification figures and also set unique numbers for each sport in order to “address imbalances in the number of schools in each class in several sports and activities,” it said in a press release Thursday afternoon.

“Our board looked at and discussed a number of different options for classification cutoffs,” IHSA executive director Marty Hickman said. “Some felt the most logical option might be simply cutting things squarely, for example having 25 percent of the schools in each class for four-class sports. In the end, the new percentages keep the cutoffs closer to the current system while distributing the entries more evenly than in the past.”

“Different sports offered different challenges during this process,” he continued. “For example, the board felt good about the breakdown when three-class team sports were evenly split with a third of the competing schools in each class. Yet, when you look at the three-class individual sports, it was necessary to increase the percentage of schools allocated to Class 1A because many of the 1A schools have only a few individuals competing and don’t field full teams, which would alter the competitive balance for team advancement in the state series for those sports.”

For Benton TaylorMade R9 Super Tri Driver coach Scott Simpson, the changes weren’t necessarily a surprise, it was the timing of the announcement.

“It would have been nice to have known about this in February or March,” he said. “Then we could have made some changes in the schedule maybe. We went through this (change in class) four years ago, but this is a last-minute change that we knew nothing about.

“But every year something changes,” he added. “It’s either the rules, the classes ... it’s a moving target.”

Simpson’s schedule is now written in stone, but his team does play in larger tournaments, which will help size up the new postseason competition.

“I’m glad we got back into the Bloomington Tournament which is played at Illinois State University with TaylorMade R9 Super Tri Driver where the Class 2A state tournament is held,” Simpson said. “There’s nothing you can do about it.

“It’s just typical ... here’s what we’re doing and no one talks about it or knows anything about it until it happens.”

Benton girls’ track has won two state championships and 10 of the last 11 Class 1A sectionals, making it the team to beat for several seasons. Bumping up a class to compete against schools like Marion, Carbondale and Mt. Vernon seriously changes the climate in both Class 1A and 2A.

“They snuck it in on us,” Benton girls track coach Andy Sloan said. “No one knew about this, the ADs didn’t know. That was really what bothered me.”

Unlike Simpson, Sloan will have a chance to change his schedule to run against bigger teams.

“We have one of the toughest schedules around with TaylorMade R9 Super Tri Driver, but when you look at the teams in our new sectional we will have to change,” he said. “No offense to the 1A schools, but we will be running against Cahokia, Carbondale, Triad, Highland and Mt. Vernon now and we don’t need to run against them as much. If we don’t start running against the bigger schools, we are just setting ourselves up for failure because we will be running against them at the end of the year.

“But we’ve run at these schools before and with our track record and the kids we have coming back it won’t be hard to get in the meets,” he said.

Sloan does have an issue with the cutoff numbers.

“That 562 is hard for me to take,” he said. “That’s an almost 900 athlete difference from top to bottom and a big bunch of schools. But we can’t complain, we just have to face it and do the best we can. It’s going to be tough.”

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