More than a year after the debate over competitive balance began, Gray Collegiate is still grappling with the fallout.

Gray, which moved to a new region with a new classification this year, learned that two of its new rivals and other schools in Lexington County, Brookland-Cayce and Airport, will not play first-team competition against the school.

“It’s disappointing,” said Kevin Heise, Gray Collegiate’s athletic director. “These are local games, a lot of the student-athletes know each other, the coaching staff, families, etc. very well. So obviously we’re disappointed that we can’t play these sub-varsity competitions. But we’ll control the things we can control.”

The Chronicle reached out to representatives from Airport and Brookland-Cayce for comment, but was referred to a statement from the Lexington Two School District.

“This is the first year of transitioning to a new regional composition, and our varsity teams look forward to competing against all of our regional opponents,” the statement said. “However, schools have more flexibility in scheduling sub-varsity play in all sports, so we have decided to make some adjustments at that level for this school year.”

Under current rules, JV teams, unlike their varsity teams, are not required to play against their regional opponents.

In the spring of 2023, Gray was forced to sit out against its 2A opponents. Those pauses carried over to the next school year, during which the team did not participate in any regional competition in any sport. The War Eagles won their region through pauses, but were forced to find replacement games, often out of state, if they wanted to compete before the playoffs.

Gray, Airport and Brookland-Cayce were placed in a region this year after the South Carolina High School League implemented a multiplier rule to resolve the debate over competitive balance. After increasing scrutiny of the way charter schools create their rosters, it was decided that each student attending a school outside their zone would count as three toward the total enrollment. As a result, Gray rose from 2A to 4A, Brookland-Cayce rose from 3A to 4A and Airport remained at 4A.

The decision to cancel came as a surprise to Heise, as he had believed that both schools would be willing to let Gray play in the sub-varsity competition.

“We had a meeting last February for the new region and the agreement on the table was that everyone would play,” Heise said. “When I raised the question of whether we should contract within the region, the other athletic directors looked at me like I had six eyes and basically said, ‘We’re in 4A, we’re not going to do that. We’re not going to worry about contracting within the region.'”

Despite the cancellations, Heise doesn’t think Gray’s teams will be at a disadvantage. Almost all of the competitions have already been replaced, and Heise said any competition is a good competition.

“That’s the only thing that needs to be clear: We can’t control other people,” Heise said. “But we can have a plan of what we want to do and that’s what we’re going to focus on.”

Heise believes the problem will be solved with time. Time will tell if the multiplier works, time will tell if the regions make sense, and time will tell if other schools come up with the idea of ​​letting Gray play at any level in any sport.

“As time goes on, charter schools become more common, … I think you’re going to see more and more charter schools in different parts of the state where they become more of the norm,” Heise said. “I think as time goes on, maybe two or three years, maybe five or six years, I don’t know how long it will take. But I think you’re going to see some of that go away as it becomes more common and more normal for charter schools and schools like this to exist.”