Lincoln heads back to Central State 8

The Central State 8 is now at 11 teams.

The Lincoln Community School Board approved the return of the Railers to the Central State 8 (CS8) Conference at its meeting Monday night.

Lincoln will stay in the Apollo Conference for the next school year, but could leave and start competing in the CS8 as early as the 2022-2023 school year.

The move to the Apollo was done to ease football scheduling both on and off the field. Lincoln, long a Central Illinois basketball power under Coach Neil Alexander and former Quincy Coach Loren Wallace before him, wasn’t competitive in football against CS8 gridiron juggernauts such as Springfield Sacred-Heart and Rochester.

Lincoln left the CS8 and joined the Apollo for the 2017-2018 school year. According to Springfield media outlets, parents and fans were complaining of the long drives play Apollo Conference schools such as Charleston and Effingham rather than the shorter trips to Rochester and the Decatur and Springfield schools.