Earlier Tuesday morning in a special session, the Mendota District 289 School Board voted unanimously to leave the Big Northern Conference for the Three Rivers Athletic Conference, most commonly known as the TRAC, for all sports. The change will take effect beginning with the 2021-2022 school year.
Although not official, Fulton High School will be leaving the Three Rivers at the conclusion of this school year. With the Steamers heading to the Northwest Upstate Illini Conference, that leaves the TRAC with an odd number of teams. Monmouth-Roseville High School filled a vacancy, at least for the sport of football, in 2016 after Amboy left for the NUIC. In October, Monmouth-Roseville accepted an invitation to join the Three Rivers in all sports. That left the TRAC with an odd number of teams, once again. The acceptance of Mendota gives the Three Rivers Conference 14 teams, that will be split into two divisions of seven schools.
The Mississippi Division, for all sports, will be made up of Monmouth-Roseville, Erie-Prophetstown, Sherrard, Orion, Morrison, Rockridge and Riverdale.
The Rock Division will include Mendota, Spring Valley Hall, Princeton, Kewanee, Peru St. Bede, Bureau Valley and Sterling Newman.
In football, schools will play six inter-division and three crossover games. In boys’ and girls’ basketball and volleyball, teams will play home and away games within their division. In baseball and softball, there will be home and away games within the division and schools will play one, cross-over game against the other division. Wrestling and golf will compete against every school in the conference once, and boys’ and girls’ track will have a conference meet at the end of the regular season.
In year’s past, the TRAC had a different division setup for football than they had for every other sport. With the recent developments, the divisions will remain the same for all athletics. Monmouth-Roseville Athletic Director, Jeremy Adolphson says he loves the new setup.
For the entire interview with Adolphson, go to the Sports Podcast section.
