For more than 20 years, Lebanon, Danville, Tri-West, Western Boone, North Montgomery, Southmont, Frankfort, and Crawfordsville have competed in the Sagamore Athletic Conference. In the upcoming years, five schools will leave the Conference, and the remaining schools will welcome two new additions. Here’s everything you need to know.

With Lebanon continuing to grow, it was no doubt that either Lebanon would leave the Sagamore Conference, or other schools would. The latter became true as earlier this month five schools came to an agreement to leave the conference and form their own. Those five schools are Western Boone, North Montgomery, Southmont, Frankfort, and Crawfordsville.

Western Boone athletic director Jeremy Dexter said one of the biggest reasons for the disbandment was, “Concerns about possible future enrollment numbers and overall competitive balance.” He continued to say that multiple schools in the conference had this concern.

In the 2025-2026 school year, the five former Sagamore schools, along with Cascade, Greencastle, and North Putnam, will create the brand new Monon Athletic Conference.

With five schools gone, Lebanon, Danville, and Tri-West needed to look for new additions. This brought them to Harrison and McCutcheon, two schools who recently left the North Central Conference. The two schools will join the Sagamore Conference the same school year the Monon Conference is created, 2025-2026. This new-look Sagamore Conference will also look to add 1-3 more schools by the time it’s created.

Harrison will come into the conference sitting atop in terms of enrollment with 2,169. The rest of the school’s enrollment follows:

This will be a huge change for Lebanon, as the school will go from the largest in the conference, to not even half the size as the new largest school. Lebanon might get off to a rough start, however it likely won’t last for long.

Lebanon is one of the most growing communities in Indiana. The just-opened Farmer’s Bank Fieldhouse, the billion-dollar Eli Lily development, and the other growing community of Whitestown are just a few of the factors that will contribute to the LHS student body growing by the hundreds in the upcoming years. Ten years from now, expect Lebanon to be nearing the size of our new conference opponents.

The new Sagamore Conference is still early in development. A lot can and likely will change in the next year before it’s official. More new schools are expected to be added and future sites for conference tournaments will be debated. Overall, a brand-new look of Lebanon athletics is on the horizon.