By KEN LIPSHEZ
Herald Staff

NEWINGTON — The Central Connecticut Conference officially has admitted two new schools and announced its realignment plans for the sports in which all its schools participate, except football, Friday at a special meeting of the league’s policy board.

Commissioner John Tarnuzzer announced Friday that Rocky Hill and Tolland have been granted admission to the conference, which at 32 member schools is the largest in the state.

The policy board said the football realignment was approved only as a “concept.” The 2009 schedule will be based on the general alignment for the other sports that are played universally by the 32 schools but with the season still active, the data for alignment is incomplete.

Thus, Tarnuzzer said football’s divisional structure is not ready for release.

“It may change slightly. We don’t know at this point. We can extrapolate but we didn’t want to do that yet to make sure we’re accurate,” Tarnuzzer said, referring to the fact that the season is in Week 9 and data remains subject to change. “We’re going to try to [reassess the divisional structure] yearly, at least we’re going to test that concept.”

School size and competitiveness based on recent results are the primary considerations for football realignment, while geography takes precedent in the general realignment. Geography is a secondary factor with football because games generally are played on Friday night and Saturday.

The following is the alignment of four eight-school divisions for the sports played across the board at member schools (girls and boys cross country, girls and boys soccer, girls volleyball, girls and boys basketball, wrestling, baseball, softball, boys golf, girls and boys tennis, girls and boys track and field):

WEST: New Britain, Southington, Simsbury, Hall-West Hartford, Newington, Conard-West Hartford, Farmington, Northwest Catholic-West Hartford

SOUTH: Bulkeley-Hartford, Bristol Central, Middletown, Maloney-Meriden, Bristol Eastern, Platt-Meriden, Berlin, Plainville

NORTH: Manchester, Glastonbury, East Hartford, South Windsor, Windsor, Weaver-Hartford, Wethersfield, East Catholic-Manchester

EAST: Bloomfield, E.O. Smith-Storrs, Fermi-Enfield, Hartford Public, RHAM-Hebron, Rockville-Vernon, Rocky Hill, Tolland

The following sports that are played at some schools but not at others will have special divisions and schedules which will be subject to change and addressed seasonally: field hockey, swimming, gymnastics, ice hockey, girls golf, lacrosse and boys volleyball.