The Georgia High School Association recently announced the new region alignments for member schools beginning next fall.

Dawson County will continue to be in Region 8-AA, which will contain 13 schools. Due to the high number of schools, the Tigers will be in sub-region A with the likes of Banks, Fannin, Rabun, Union and East Hall.

East Hall is moving down from Region 7-AAA.

Sub region B will be made up of East Jackson, Elbert County, Hart County, Jackson County, Jefferson, North Oconee and Oglethorpe County. Elbert, Hart and Jackson all have moved down from AAA.

It hasn’t been decided if basketball will play a region schedule or a sub region schedule with crossovers. That meeting should take place this month.

Head Coach Steve Sweat, varsity girl’s basketball coach, and Thad Burgess, varsity boy’s basketball coach, recently commented on their opinions of the new alignments.

“It is hard now and it just got harder,” Sweat said. “More teams to play in crossover games, which cuts into some of your regular season rival games.

“I know this is a very big project for GHSA, but seeing the new alignments makes you wonder why some schools got placed in the regions they did. Some regions have too many schools and some have too few schools. This makes it very easy, or very hard, for some schools to qualify for the state tournament.”

“Our new region will be a very difficult situation for us in basketball. We would have been a favorite if they had left it the way it is now. However, now our region, with the addition of East Hall, Hart County and Elbert County and a vastly improved Jackson County team will make it possibly the most difficult basketball region in the state,” said Burgess.

“Athletically, Jefferson, East Jackson and Oglethorpe, with those other teams, will be very hard for us to match up with them. We have been able to compete the last four years in our region, things just got more difficult,” Burgess added.

The region alignments were announced on Dec. 2.