For the past few years, all of Chardon’s athletic programs have competed in the Premier Athletic Conference, a conference made up of Chardon, Lakeside, Geneva, Willoughby South, Eastlake North, University School, Madison, and Riverside.  With the exception of University, Geneva and Lakeside, all of these teams will be moving to the Western Reserve Conference, a reincarnation of a similar conference that disbanded when the PAC formed. Along with the aforementioned PAC teams moving to the conference, Kenston, Mayfield and Brush will be moving to the new conference as well.

“Discussions started two years ago when concerns arose about Kenston and Aurora being two big for their conference (The Chagrin Valley Conference (CVC)).”  Principal Andy Fetchik commented “Several CVC schools invited us to a meeting about creating a conference with a big division, a middle division and a small division, but we were happy where we were.”  Talks about realignment continued with schools such as Solon, Twinsburg, Hudson and many other PAC schools all of them mentioned in joining the new conference with Chardon.  However, Chardon had one thing that they wanted in the new conference. “We were not comfortable leaving Madison, as they were one of the original five members of the PAC.”  Finally Chardon found a league they were comfortable with.  Consisting originally of Chardon, North, South, Geneva, Riverside, Madison, Brush, Mayfield and a possibility of West Geauga, the new Western Reserve conference will not include Geneva or West Geauga, which makes scheduling games much easier according to Fetchik, who knows that not all will be easy about this new conference.

“It will be a significant task to compete, as we will be one of the smaller schools in the conference.” Fetchik said.  However, Fetchik is also exited about this new opportunity. “The quality of academics (at the schools), the geography and the rivalries will make this a tremendous conference.”  In addition to sports, this new conference will extend far beyond the playing field.  “We are anticipating having leadership conferences, band and choir competitions and collaborations, and this will only benefit the kids.” Fetchik explained, also adding that successful programs from other schools could be implemented at Chardon and vice versa.

“We were happy in the PAC and we still are.” Fetchik says, but continued “If we didn’t find a conference we would have ended up independent, which means we would have been playing (a team like) St. Ignatius in week five and that is no fun for anyone.”