Broughton leads the strongest conference in the state, and it's the girls that really make the CAP-8 formidable.
NCRunners rates conferences by looking at the Returning Team Rankings for the classification, and then assigning points for each conference according to where its teams rank (1 for first, 2 for second, etc). Points for both boys and girls rankings are added together (a minimum of 3 ranked teams for each gender are required), and those totals are used to generate the top 5 conferences. Each conference's rating is a measure of how competitive that conference is on the state meet level. In the specific case of the NCHSAA 4A,
Top 5 NCHSAA 4A Conferences
1. CAP-8: we know their boys' teams, but this is by far the best girls' conference in the state.
2. Southwest Wake: powered by one elite team in each gender, with a fall-off to the second tier.
3. Central Piedmont: a bit down from last year, but still intensely competitive.
4. So. Meck: realignment has broken up the Charlotte powers, leaving this new conference as the toughest.
5. Mid-South: as tough as any boys' conference in the state, but struggles with depth on the girls' side.