As basketball and football seasons wind down, the Montana High School Sports Association is warming up with changes to team class and championship games.

Arlee, where the boy’s team took the state championship in basketball two years running, is moving from Class C to B starting in the 2019-2020 school year.

Classes are determined by student enrollment and Arlee’s two-year average has been 129, which is 11 students over the mandatory cut off of 118. The Montana High School Sports Association allows schools to stay in their current classification if their enrollment is above the set figure by less than 10 percent.

In Class C, the set figure before the 10 percent allowance is 107 students. MHSA records show that Arlee has been among the largest three Class C schools every year since the 2007-2008 academic year. In Class B, they will be playing schools like Rocky Boy, Choteau, Shelby, Troy, Joliet, Forsyth and Fairfield, St. Ignatius.

Arlee will remain in Class C 8-Man football, which has an enrollment cutoff of 130 students.

There is a change, however, in where the 8-man state championship football game will be played. On April 9, MHSA approved it to be played at a neutral site. Starting this fall, Butte and Billings will rotate as hosts. Prior to this change, the championship game was played at the higher seed’s home field. This is done across all classifications in Montana, and the 8-man game is the first classification to adopt a neutral site for its championship game. This fall the game will be played at Butte’s Naranche Stadium and in 2019 it will be played at the Rocky Mountain College’s Herb Klindt Field.

The Superior/Alberton Coop Clark Fork Mountain Cats play 8-man football and join teams in west, including Arlee, Charlo, Darby, Drummond/Granite, Plains, St. Ignatius, Seeley-Swan, Troy and Victor.