HIGHLAND – Highland High School will be joining the South Seven Conference in 2026-27, which signals the death blow to the Mississippi Valley Conference following the 2025-26 school year/
The Highland Community Unit District 5 Board of Education voted to accept the invitation to join the South Seven at its meeting on Monday night. The move is the final domino to drop in the current conference realignment in the Metro-East area, with Granite City rejoining the Southwestern Conference, along with Triad and Mascoutah joining the league, and Waterloo rejoining the Cahokia Conference, with Civic Memorial and Jersey joining effective in 2026-27.
The Bulldogs will compete with Cahokia, Carbondale, Marion, Centralia, and Mt. Vernon in the South Seven. East Alton-Wood River and Roxana are members of the Cahokia Conference’s Mississippi Division, but it’s now yet knows what divisions Waterloo, CM, and Jersey will play in. the Southwestern Conference, with the additions of Granite, Triad, and Mascoutah, will split into two five-team divisions, with Granite City, Triad, Mascoutah, Alton, and Collinsville in one division, and East St. Louis, Edwardsville, Belleville East, Belleville West, and O’Fallon in the other division.
The MVC was founded in 1971-72, and originally consisted of EAWR, Roxana, Jersey, CM, Highland, Triad, O’Fallon, and Mascoutah. The Panthers left in 1993 to join the South Seven, and eventually joined the Southwestern Conference, while the Oilers and Shells left in 1998, with EAWR joining the Prairie State Conference, and Roxana going to the South Central Conference. Waterloo joined the league from the Cahokia Conference in 1998.
The MVC will compete in all sports in the 2025-26 school year, after which it will fold, with all of the member schools joining their new conferences. The league has won a total of seven IHSA state championships in its existence, the most recent being Waterloo winning the Class 2A boys soccer title in 2017, and the Triad girls soccer team winning the Class 2A title, also in 2017. The Knights finished second in girls soccer last spring in Naperville.
