Part of Cardinal Gibbons' success at the regional and state level could be attributed to competing in a strong conference.
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 NCHSAA 3A classification, the best teams are grouped into a small number of conferences: only 7 had 3 teams in the top 40 for each gender.
Top 5 NCHSAA 3A Conferences:
1. Big Eight: strength at the stop, plus a second tier of teams for quality depth.
2. Southern Carolina: ties with Big Eight in terms of top 2 teams, but not nearly as deep a conference for either gender.
3. South Piedmont: lacking a top 5 team right now, but very competitive (especially on the boys side).
4. Coastal: depth drops off sharply after the top team.
5. Western NC Athletic: competitive conference, but does not have any powerhouses at the top.
NCHSAA 3A Conference Virtual Meets: