MADISON- The Alabama High School Athletic Association (AHSAA) has approved the winter sports alignments for participating schools for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years. The alignments were set for basketball, indoor track, wrestling and bowling. Member schools are reclassified every two years.

The latest alignments from the AHSAA go along with the fall sports lineup released late last year and are based on the number of schools declaring to participate.

For Madison Academy, the alignments every two years usually means changing classifications depending on enrollment. In the earlier fall sports announcement, the Mustangs’ football program will move up to Class 4A while the volleyball team will move down to Class 4A beginning next school year. In the latest classifications, the private school will back to Class 4A from 5A in basketball and remain the same in all remaining sports such as cross country (Class 3A), swimming and diving (Class 1A-5A), indoor track (Class 4A-5A), bowling (Class 1A-5A) and wrestling (Class 1A-4A).

Alvin Briggs, AHSAA Executive Director, said, “More than 190,000 student-athletes are expected to participate in AHSAA sports activities during the next two classification years. The alignments decided on by the Central Board was a complex task.”

For the Mustangs’ basketball program, the boys have been participating in Class 5A Area 16 for the past two seasons winning Area Championships both years under the guidance of head coach Tom Berryman. The move to 4A will mean playing different schools than in the past in Area play.

In football, the move to Class 4A will have the Mustangs face three additional private schools similar to Madison Academy. Those schools include Randolph, Westminster and St. John Paul II. Included in the Region 8 lineup of schools will include D.A.R., Madison County, New Hope, North Jackson and Plainview.

In the past two seasons in Class 3A, Madison Academy posted a 23-4 record losing in the state playoffs each year including a loss in the state championship game against Mobile Christian. Football head coach Bob Godsey said, “We are excited to move back to Class 4A. We have a lot of great competition right here in the Huntsville area that should make for some exciting Friday nights.”

Classification is based on Average Daily Membership (ADM) figures furnished by the State Department of Education in grades 9-11.