Realignment affects River Forest, Roosevelt, EC

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In the 2008 football season, River Forest played rival Lake Station twice -- once in the regular season and once in sectionals.

That possibility has been eliminated for 2009 and 2010.

The Ingots will move up to Class 2A from Class 1A as part of the IHSAA's realignment that occurs every two years in football. River Forest now is tied with Park Tudor for the smallest 2A enrollment with 426 students, as Lake Station has the largest in 1A with 425.

"I felt we were best-suited to stay in Class 1A," River Forest coach Jeff Bean said. "We were looking forward to it.

"We thought it might be coming if they would've gone to six classes. I was a little surprised we moved up to 2A with five classes. But we're also looking forward to the challenges of Class 2A."

Roosevelt and East Chicago Central are the region's two other affected schools, with the Panthers moving to 4A from 3A and the Cardinals to 5A from 4A.

River Forest went 1-9 this past season, and has five wins overall in the last five seasons, after going 6-4 in 2003.

Both Roosevelt and East Chicago are returning to their classification from before the previous realignment.

The Panthers went 0-8 and 5-5 the last two seasons in 3A, after going 4-6 in 4A in 2006. The Cardinals went 4-5 and 5-5 in 4A, after going 2-8 in 5A in '06. East Chicago now is tied with Whiteland Community for the smallest 5A enrollment with 1,551 students.

River Forest is among four schools going from 1A to 2A, Roosevelt is one of two going from 3A to 4A and East Chicago is one of five going from 4A to 5A.