CHAPEL HILL -- Chapel Hill High School athletic director Ronnie Hayes will meet today with his soon-to-be counterparts -- representatives from the five schools that will join CHHS in a brand-new conference next year.

Hayes and the athletic directors from Orange, Oxford Webb, Cardinal Gibbons, Northern Vance and Southern Vance High Schools are meeting to discuss plans for the 3-A conference that will take effect in the 2009-2010 school year. The Tigers are moving to the 3-A level after the school's enrollment dropped significantly following the opening of Carrboro High School in 2007.

The new alignment operates under a four-year plan. However, Hayes says the school may bounce back up even sooner if it's big enough.

"If the enrollment grows, which we expect it will, after the second year of the realignment you can petition," he says. "If the numbers change we'll petition to go up to 4-A after the second year."

Hayes says the school will go to great lengths to preserve the all-sports rivalry with 4-A East Chapel Hill and to encourage the budding one with 2-A Carrboro High. Folks from all three schools are still trying to work out how they can get CHS intertwined in the Top of the Hill Cup, a competition that tracks head-to-head results between the Chapel Hill schools in all sports.

Hayes is hopeful that situation gets resolved, because the Cup has made the Tiger-Wildcat rivalry even fiercer.

"It's all people talk about," the AD says. "We were ahead in (this year's Cup) by two points and it came down to the very last day in the spring sports season, and every venue was packed."

East Chapel Hill athletic director Ray Hartsfield admits, however, that the intra-city events carry more weight when a conference spot is at stake.

"When we were 3-A and they were 4-A the rivalry was fun but it probably stepped up a notch when we came into the conference," says Hartsfield, whose Wildcats moved into the PAC-6 4-A league in 2005. "The local bragging rights are one thing but when it's a really important game every time out the intensity level rises."

Hayes, who spent 12 years as the Lewisburg High School girls basketball coach and was more recently the athletic director at South Granville High, has enjoyed being a part of the rivalry since arriving in the Triangle three years ago.

"When I got here someone told me if Chapel Hill and East Chapel Hill played checkers it'd be a packed house. It's always going to be exciting, and Carrboro will too when we pick them up in a few more sports."

Hartsfield says East has also struggled so far to get games scheduled with the Jaguars. The Wildcat AD also notes that CHHS will have to deal with driving longer distances for conference competition.

"It's gonna be tough with the travel -- we dealt with that in our early years," he says.

Hayes notes an additional obstacle is that although the new conference promises to provide plenty of "tough competition," scheduling in the new classification will be tougher in certain sports.

"We're gonna have to be more creative with field hockey and lacrosse because there's fewer numbers in 3-A," he says. "We'll play the teams in our conference, keep East on as a non-conference and keep Carrboro, and schedule as many teams in the 4-A as we can."

Those two sports -- both particular strengths of Chapel Hill-Carrboro schools -- aren't recognized by the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. That's the main reason CHHS fell short in its bid for the 2007-2008 Wachovia Cup, a North Carolina all-sports competition.

The Tigers won this year's boys lacrosse and field hockey state titles, both overlooked by the Wachovia standings, and yet they still managed to finish second in the Cup race. With that accomplishment one would be hard-pressed to question Hayes' high praise for his program, which he declares is second-to-none.

"Across the board we're very successful," he says. "I believe we have the best sports program in this state."

Hayes recently made his first two varsity hires as Chapel Hill's AD, tapping Tod Morgan to be the new boys basketball coach in June and last week securing Bob Cappelletti, who led the East boys lacrosse team to the 2006 state championship, to lead the Tigers' bid for a state three-peat.

"We had a huge number of basketball applicants and some good candidates (for lacrosse)," says Hayes, "and I feel like we've got the right people in the right place at the right time."