Thursday’s meeting was a chance for interested schools to apply to move any sport (or sports) to a higher classification.

As expected, Layton Christian Academy applied to move boys basketball and boys soccer up to 4A from 3A. LCA’s request was granted and both sports were placed into regions.

LCA boys basketball will compete in the Utah County-heavy Region 8, and boys soccer will be in the Salt Lake County-heavy Region 10. Both teams are currently in the 4A classification for this school year but as unattached schools.

LCA is one of 11 schools that will have at least one sport playing in a higher classification in 2023-25.

St. Joseph Catholic is the only other Northern Utah school that will be affected by the sport-by-sport changes, as the 2A Jayhawks stand to lose region opponents in boys basketball, softball and possibly baseball after the board granted requests from American Heritage (basketball) and American Leadership Academy (softball and baseball) to move up to 3A.

LCA’s baseball team also stands to lose a region opponent as Juan Diego will play in 4A instead of 3A.

The board also shuffled teams between regions in 6A, giving the classification three regions of six teams each (currently, 6A has four regions), instead of the previous proposal that had regions of five, six and seven teams.

The Northern Utah-based 6A Region 1 is unchanged from previous alignment decisions with Weber, Fremont, Layton, Syracuse, Davis and Farmington comprising that region for 2023-25.

The 5A Region 5 (Bonneville, Roy, Clearfield, Northridge, Clearfield, Viewmont, Bountiful, Woods Cross) and 3A Region 13 (Ben Lomond, Ogden, Morgan, South Summit, Grantsville, Union) setups will also remain as previously decided.

The shuffling in Regions 2 and 3 that balanced the three 6A regions was done by moving Corner Canyon from R3 to R2, and Westlake and Lehi from R2 to R3.

That came after American Fork, Lone Peak, Pleasant Grove, Skyridge and Corner Canyon administrators wrote to the UHSAA in the last month, letters that were sent to every high school and obtained by the Standard-Examiner.

Administrators from those schools asked the UHSAA to even out the 6A regions, citing scheduling challenges that would be easier to navigate as a six-team region instead of a five-team region.

Those school officials also wrote they were under the impression Westlake was staying in the region and blasted the board’s decision to simultaneously move Westlake out of the region, not replace Westlake in the region and not ask any of the other five schools for feedback.

Connect with reporter Patrick Carr via email at pcarr@standard.net, Twitter @patrickcarr_ and Instagram @standardexaminersports.