Kaneland officially joins Northern Illinois Big 12

Kaneland knew it would be in a new conference in the 2010-11 school year, and on Monday that conference got its name - the Northern Illinois Big 12.

That was one of the announcements at a meeting Monday morning at LaSalle-Peru high school, along with how the 12 teams will be split into two divisions and how the formats will work for each sport.

Kaneland is in the same division with Yorkville, Sycamore, Rochelle and DeKalb - all members the Knights know well from the current Western Sun Conference - plus Morris.

The other division has Dixon, Geneseo, LaSalle-Peru, Ottawa, Sterling and Streator.

"Kaneland is looking forward to working with the schools within the Northern Illinois Big 12," Kaneland athletic director Leigh Jaffke said. "We have competed against each of the 11 schools in my tenure at Kaneland and have found each school to be very similar to us."

Geneseo is the smallest school in the conference with 914 students; DeKalb the biggest with 1,710. Besides DeKalb, only Ottawa has more than 1,300 students.

The other enrollments are: Dixon (969), Kaneland (1,040), LaSalle-Peru (1,280), Morris (1,075), Ottawa (1,602), Rochelle (1,116), Sterling (1,033), Streator (1,030), Sycamore (1,162) and Yorkville (1,295).

For football, teams play the five teams in its division in weeks five through nine. They play two Northern Illinois Big 12 crossover games in weeks three and four. Freshman games are on Mondays.

Boys and girls basketball teams will have three levels. Varsity teams will play a double round robin within the division (10 games), and four crossover games with the other division on weekend dates, if possible. The freshmen will have a end-of-the-season conference tournament.

For baseball, teams play a three-game series with teams from their division and two crossovers Saturday quads. Softball has a two-game series within the division and two Saturday crossover quads.

Volleyball teams have a double round robin within the division and two crossovers. Cross country will hold a conference meet at the end of the season.

After the coming school year, the final one for the Western Sun, Batavia and Geneva will join the Upstate Eight to give the conference 14 teams, split into two seven-team divisions.