NCHSAA sets sites for fall state finals

There will be new venues for some North Carolina High School Athletic Association state championships.

The governing body announced sites for fall championships last week, with first-time title locations included for volleyball, soccer and football.

Because the NCHSAA expanded from four to eight classifications beginning this school year, more venues were needed, while some sports will have championship competitions spread across multiple days.

For volleyball and football, site assignments for specific classifications will be determined based on participating teams.

The individual girls’ tennis finals come first among fall championships and they’re scheduled for Friday and Saturday. Cary Tennis Center (Class 1A, Class 3A), Burlington Tennis Center (Class 3A, Class 4A), Ting Park in Holly Springs (Class 5A, Class 6-A) and Millbrook Exchange in Raleigh (Class 7-A and Class 8-A) are the sites.

Dual team tennis finals will be spread across two days at Burlington Tennis Center, which has been a longtime championship spot. On Oct. 31, Class 6A and Class 8A will be contested at 9 a.m., with Class 5-A and Class 7-A at noon. The next day, Class 2A and Class 4A finals will be at 9 a.m. and Class 1A and Class 3A at noon.

The two-day girls’ golf state tournaments will be held Oct. 27-28 at Gates Four Golf and Country Club in Fayetteville (combined Class 1A / 2A), Longleaf Golf and Family Club in Southern Pines (Class 3A , Class 4A), Stonebridge Golf Club in Monroe (Class 5A, Class 6A), Sapona Golf Club in Lexington (Class 7A) and Pinehurst No. 6 (Class 8A).

Cross country championships will be held for the 13th consecutive time at Ivey Redmon Complex in Kernersville, but they’ll be contested across two days (Oct. 31, Nov. 1).

Volleyball finals will be held with four classes competing Oct. 31 at Joel Coliseum in Winston-Salem and titles for four other classes decided Nov. 1 at North Carolina State’s Reynolds Coliseum in Raleigh. Joel Coliseum is new to the lineup for volleyball finals.

It will take three days for boys’ soccer finals Nov. 20-22, with all those matchups taking place at Guilford College’s Armfield Athletic Center in Greensboro. This is a first-time finals venue.

Three sites – Kenan Stadium in Chapel Hill, Durham County Memorial Stadium and Lenoir-Rhyne’s Moretz Stadium in Hickory – will be used for football finals. The dates for those are Dec. 11-13. Four games will be held at Kenan Stadium, which has been a longtime location for title games. On Dec. 13, a 2 p.m. North Carolina men’s basketball game at the Smith Center is bound to impact the time frame for any football games on campus that day.

There will be two games at each of the other stadiums, which are first-time sites for football finals. Durham County Stadium has a capacity of about 8,500 and Moretz Stadium can accommodate 7,200.

The cheerleading invitational will be held Dec. 6 at Raleigh Convention Center.