Come August, Cumberland High School will no longer be a member of the 1A East Conference 44. Instead, they will be making the switch to 1A East Conference 42, along with Central High School from Lunenburg.

“We just decided, the principal (Jeff Scales) and I, that we were just going to switch conferences because it was a whole lot easier for travel. When we get to conference play, we had three other teams that are coming down from up in the Shenandoah Valley in the mountains. That’s a long way to travel for games,” said CHS Athletic Director Alfonso Bell.

“During the weeknights, traveling up to the mountains was hard. Conference 44 was a great conference. We just decided that it would be better for our school to switch.”

Although CHS sports will be playing new teams during conference play, the Dukes will remain in the James River District.

However, varsity football will not be playing every team in the JRD.

“We are not going to be playing Goochland High School or Buckingham County High School for the next two years,” said first-year CHS varsity football coach Edgar Knapp.

“That decision was made before I took over as coach and the goal is to build our team so that it can become a successful program.”

Bell commented on the change, saying, “Everything else, we are still in the JRD and will be playing those teams in every other sport. We just chose not to play Goochland and Buckingham because it (the score) hadn’t been close in the last four or five years.”

“We don’t have a junior varsity team, and we hope that in the next two years we will be back playing those teams and have a complete district football schedule,” said Bell.

Below is a list of the 2015-2016 Virginia High School League 1A East Conference 42 schools:

Central Lunenburg

Charles City

Chesterfield Community

Cumberland

King & Queen

Matthews

Middlesex

West Point