Section Realignment Affects Area Teams

The Minnesota State High School League has issued its new section alignment for the 2025-2026 season, based off new enrollments for the involved schools. There are quite a few changes. Rushford-Peterson and Lewiston-Altura are two schools seeing nearly across the board realignments. For football, Section 1A undergoes an overhaul. Lewiston-Altura moves in from 1AA. Southland moves up from 9-Man. Former 2AA school NRHEG and 2A school United South Central also join the section. Those four schools plus Fillmore Central and Hayfield are the new six-team section 1A. Blooming Prairie, Goodhue, Kenyon-Wanamingo, and Wabasha-Kellogg move out of the section, as does Rushford-Peterson, which slides into section 1AA. Triton also moves into 1AA from 2AA while Lourdes drops down from 1AAA. They join Chatfield, Caledonia, St. Charles and Dover-Eyota in the new 1AA section. Section 1 9-Man stays the same save swapping former 1A school W-K for Southland (which moves up to 1A). It is W-K’s first attempt at 9-Man football. On the volleyball court, L-A drops down to 1A from 1AA and NRHEG moves from 2AA into 1A. BP, Goodhue, and R-P move up to 1AA while Red Wing drops down into that section from 1AAA. Boys’ basketball notably sees Lewiston-Altura drop from 1AA to 1A. Medford also joins Section 1A, moving from 2AA. Again, R-P moves from 1A to 1AA, as does defending section champ Goodhue. And thus, last year’s section 1A title game combatants each move up a class. Red Wing moves down from 1AAA to 1AA. Girls basketball also sees L-A drop down, while NRHEG moves into 1A from 2AA. Defending 1A champion Goodhue moves up to 1AA, as does Rushford-Peterson. Red Wing again drops down from 1AAA to 1AA. For a complete list of section re-alignments, go to https://www.mshsl.org/tournaments/competitive-sections/list. District realignments for football will be changed in the coming weeks too.