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Prep Blog: 6 Metro Schools Form New Conference

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Starting about three months from now, one Twin Cities conference is going to look at lot different when football and the other fall high school sports get started.

Officials announced in early April that six schools will be leaving the Tri-Metro Conference and forming their own league, called the Independent Metro Athletic Conference. Those schools include The Blake School, Breck, Minnehaha Academy, Mounds Park Academy, Providence Academy and St. Paul Academy. They will start athletic competition as a league this fall.

Five of those six schools made up the west portion of the Tri-Metro. The remaining schools left are DeLaSalle, Brooklyn Center, Concordia Academy, New Life Academy, St. Agnes, St. Anthony and St. Croix Village. Mounds Park Academy had been an independent.

The goal of the new league is the same as any other: Trying to find schools that are reasonably close in proximity that also provide competitive match-ups across the board in all activities. Forming the new league comes after changes to the Tri-Metro Conference, which in recent years consisted of as many as 16 schools. The schools in the league had wide-ranging enrollment numbers and also created several scheduling challenges within various activities.

Mounds Park Academy Athletic Director Joe Kordosky said all the member schools are excited about being in a smaller, more manageable conference.

And if that's the main motive, I like the move. We have too many situations every year where the same teams in the same sports are winning conference titles every year. The same schools seem to put out the most competitive programs every year, while the same programs that struggle continue to have a tough time moving up.

If you look at the enrollment numbers of the schools in the IMAC, they're all pretty close. Three of the six schools have enrollment numbers of 400 or more student, and none has less than 200. And with a new conference comes new rivalries, even though a lot of these schools are already familiar with each other.

Of the Tri-Metro schools remaining, DeLasalle and St. Anthony have by far the largest enrollments with more than 600 students each. Of the other six schools left in the league, only St. Croix Lutheran has more than 400 students. Check out the exact enrollment figures of all the schools involved in this switch below, provided by the Minnesota State High School League.

Enrollments

Independent Metro Athletic Conference
Blake – 518
Breck – 402
Minnehaha Academy – 414
Mounds Park Academy – 202
Providence Academy – 323
St. Paul Academy – 373

Tri-Metro Conference Schools
DeLaSalle – 614
Brooklyn Center – 312
Concordia Academy – 295
New Life Academy – 227
St. Agnes – 209
St. Anthony – 626
St. Croix Lutheran – 444
Mounds Park Academy – 202

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