Henlopen Conference

The Henlopen Conference is a high school sports conference comprising public schools in Kent County and Sussex County in lower Delaware. The teams participate in a variety of sports including football, boys and girls soccer, track and field, cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls indoor track, boys and girls outdoor track, wrestling, boys and girls lacrosse, baseball, softball, cheerleading, boys and girls swimming, and field hockey.

Schools and teams

The schools and teams that make up the Henlopen Conference are divided into two divisions, the Henlopen Northern Division and Henlopen Southern Division. Despite the name, the schools are not divided by geographical location, but rather by enrollment numbers, with the larger schools in the Northern Division and the smaller schools in the Southern Division. The conferences are re-arranged every few years based on enrollment numbers. The current conference alignment for the schools along with the city they are located in are: Henlopen Northern Division Henlopen Southern Division

Membership timeline

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Conference history

The Henlopen Conference was created in the January 1959 as a conference of Sussex County schools with enrollments under 350. The conference began its first interleague conference play with the start of the 1959 high school baseball season. The initial members of the Henlopen Conference were the Bridgeville Mustangs, Rehoboth Beach Seahawks, Milton Warriors, Greenwood Foresters, Delmar Wildcats, Millsboro Blue Devils, John M. Clayton Bears, Lord Baltimore Lords, and Selbyville Rebels. While an initial member of the newly formed conference, the Delmar Wildcats did not join the conference for interleague conference play until the beginning of the 1959–60 basketball season. Two weeks later, on February 3, 1959, the Harrington Lions and Felton Green Devils were admitted, expanding the league into Kent County. The Dover Air Force Base Falcons joined two years after its formation. In 1969, additional teams were added as the Diamond State Conference, originally formed by the larger schools of Kent and Sussex County, merged with the Henlopen Conference. These were: Smyrna, Dover, Caesar Rodney, Milford, Seaford, Lewes, Georgetown and Middletown; Middletown being the lone member from New Castle County. Lewes and Georgetown were the first schools that decided to migrate from the Diamond State Conference and join and eventually every team from the Diamond State Conference (except for Middletown) joined the Henlopen Conference. Middletown, as the only New Castle County school, moved to a conference composed entirely of New Castle County schools after one year of playing as an independent because they were barred from joining the Henlopen Conference due to the conference by-laws regarding geography. Because of the state mandated school district mergers of 1969–70, the teams changed their geographical makeup. Lewes, Milton, and Rehoboth Beach merged to form the Cape Henlopen Vikings. Georgetown, John M. Clayton, and a large part of the Millsboro School District merged to become the Sussex Central Golden Knights (the other portion of Millsboro was absorbed into Cape Henlopen). Greenwood and Bridgeville merged to become the Woodbridge Blue Raiders. Harrington and Felton merged with Frederica to become the Lake Forest Spartans. Lord Baltimore and Selbyville were merged with Frankford and Dagsboro to become the Indian River Indians. The Milford School District also joined the conference after merging with the Ellendale and Houston school districts, keeping the Milford Buccaneers name. Magnolia and Oak Point merged with Caesar Rodney in 1969 and Dover Air Force Base high school students were absorbed into the Caesar Rodney High School after the United States government closed down the base's school in the 1980s. The Polytech Panthers (1992) and Sussex Tech Ravens (1995) joined the conference with the addition of their sports teams when the schools made the transition from vocational trade schools to technical and academic schools. In August 2015, the Sussex Academy of Arts and Sciences became the newest school, and first charter school, to join the Henlopen Conference. Of note is that not all teams joined the conference immediately at its inception, affecting the number of conference championships the teams could have won.

Football

Football history

Since 1969, teams in the Henlopen Conference have won a total of 25 state football championships. The south leads the north in championships 16 to 9. Caesar Rodney leads the northern division with three Division I Championships and Delmar leads the southern division with six Division II Championships. Woodbridge High School was the last team to win a state championship in 2016. Only three times has the conference swept the Division I and Division II championship. In 1988, Dover from the North and Indian River from the South were the first to do it. In 2008, Caesar Rodney (North) and Milford (South) accomplished the feat. In the 2008 championship games, both Caesar Rodney and Milford defeated Sussex Central and Laurel to win their respective championships, marking the only time the final four teams in the state tournament were from the Henlopen Conference. In the latest occasion, Woodbridge won the Division II championship and Smyrna won the Division I championship in 2016. Seaford High School is the only school in the conference to win both a Division I and II Championship.

2006 Lake Forest forfeits

In 2006 Lake Forest High School had to temporarily shut down their varsity football team due to allegations of use of painkillers. Lake Forest forfeited their final eight games for that season.

Milford controversy

Prior to the 2007–08 school year, Milford was moved to the Henlopen South while Smyrna joined the Northern Division due to changes in enrollment. On September 30, 2008, those numbers were rechecked and confirmed to determine the assignments for the 2009–10 and 2010-11 school years. With only a total of 8 students separating the seventh and eighth largest schools, with Polytech coming in a 1,164 and Milford at 1,156; the conference assignments were certified to stay the same through June 2011. This included Polytech in the North Division and Milford in the South. Days prior to the Division 2 Championship game, Polytech High School challenged the enrollment numbers that were submitted by Milford High School. Polytech brought their case to the athletic directors of the Henlopen Conference schools in a monthly meeting, and Milford argued their case as to why the numbers were correct. At the center of Polytech's argument were 17 students of the Intensive Learning Center, a separate school from Milford High School for special needs and mentally challenged students that rented space inside Milford High. The Polytech officials argued that those students were in the building and should be counted, the Milford officials argued that it was a separate school and that the State of Delaware did not count those children in Milford's enrollment nor did Milford receive funding for them. A vote was held by the athletic directors of the various schools in the conference, all of the directors in the South voted Milford should move up to the North except Laurel High School; all of the directors in the North said Milford should stay down except for Polytech High School, which made it a 6–6 vote as Milford was not allowed to vote. However, the director for Sussex Central wasn't present for the meeting, so the director for Indian River High School was allowed to vote twice as Indian River High School and Sussex Central High School are in the same school district. The director voted two times that Milford move to the North Division and the vote was confirmed. In December 2008, Milford appealed to the superintendents of the schools comprising the Henlopen Conference. The superintendents voted to uphold the decision of the athletic directors as it was an athletics issue. Milford also appealed to the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association, the governing body for athletics in Delaware schools. The DIAA decided that the matter needed to be handled by the Henlopen Conference and that they would not be involved. On April 15, 2009, Milford High School filed a lawsuit against the Henlopen Conference in Chancery Court challenging that the vote was against the conference by-laws. In the lawsuit, Milford is listed as seeking "declaratory relief" and to have the vote to change the conference alignments nullified, placing Milford High School back in the South Division. On July 2, that lawsuit was dismissed.

Historical Henlopen Conference football records

1950s

1959 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1960s

1960 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1961 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1962 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1963 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1964 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1965 Regular season Football Standings

Henlopen Conference

1970s