It looks like the Chattooga Indians and the Trion Bulldogs will rekindle their on-field rivalry next year for the first time since 1971 after the new GHSA Classifications were announced today.  Trion appealed the GHSA’s decision to move Trion to AA and won that appeal in a 15-4 vote today.

The GHSA reclassification committee met today to hear appeals from schools across the state in response to the reclassification system announced days ago that applies a multiplier across all school systems according to how many out-of-district students are enrolled in a given school system.

Trion City Schools was originally slated to move up to AA after the initial reclassifications were announced.  However Trion Athletic Director Jason Lanham appealed that decision and made his case in front of the reclassification committee today at 11:05am.

Lanham originally appealed for Trion to move from class AA down to Division 2 of Class A.  Committee Member Jim Finch made a motion to deny the appeal and the motion was seconded by committee member Steven Craft.  The committee then voted 14-5 to deny the appeal.

After the first appeal was denied, committee member Glenn White made a substitute motion to place Trion in Division 1 of Class A instead of Division 2 in Class A.  Division 1 of Class A is for larger schools as compared to Division 2 which is for smaller enrollment schools.  The motion was seconded by committee member Davis Russell and the committee voted 15-4 to place Trion in Division 1 of Class A.

The most interesting part of the appealed reclassification is Trion now joins a region with Chattooga and the two schools will renew a rivalry that has been dormant since 1971.  Although the two schools held a preseason scrimmage for several years, Trion and Chattooga have not played each other in a regular season game since a 0-0 tie in 1971.  All of that will change next year.

Trion and Chattooga will join Armuchee, Coosa, Dade County, Dalton Academy, Darlington and Pepperell in the newly formed Region 7A of Class A Division 1.

Conversely, Gordon Lee made a very similar appeal that Trion did today.  Gordon Lee appealed to go from AA down to A Division 1 but was denied in a vote of 15-4.  The Trojans will be a member of 7AA and will join Fannin County, Gordon Central, Haralson County, Model, Murray County, North Murray and Rockmart.

You can read the minutes of all of today’s appeals and see the new region alignments by clicking here.