The Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference could be expanding.

Five schools from the Big East Conference have expressed an interest in joining the KVAC Class A field. Those schools include Bangor, Brewer, Old Town, Hampden Academy and Nokomis.

“Right now, it’s only in the preliminary stages,” said Oxford Hills athletic director Jeff Benson. “They’re interested in applying. The five schools have expressed an interest.”

There are currently only six schools in the Big East Conference competing at the Class A level. John Bapst intends to drop down to Class B.

That leaves the other five struggling to find a full Class A schedule.

This basketball season, those schools have played each other three times while crossing over with some other KVAC schools.

“They’re basically left to try and get a Class A schedule with only five schools,” said Colin Roy, athletic director at Mt. Ararat and president of the KVAC. “That’s the main reason for the change – to attempt to challenge their A programs.”

If any change were to take place, it would be for the 2005 season.

At this point, the schools have only expressed an interest and will make a presentation at the league meeting next month at the Augusta Civic Center.

“The next step will be February 4,” said Roy. “They’ll come individually and make their presentations to us.”

The five schools will explain their reasoning for wanting a change and have the chance to ask and answer questions.

Only Bangor plays a complete Class A schedule in all sports.

“This is a sincere gesture by those schools, to try to resolve some issues that they’re having,” said Roy. “I think we have to accommodate and listen to their proposals in a sincere fashion. It doesn’t mean we have to accept them.”

After the meeting next month, the various committees for each sport would mull over the various implications. Scheduling would be an obvious complication.

With 20 teams, finding a way to balance the schedule with travel concerns, makes for a challenge.

Roy says that a likely scenario would be that the league is divided into two parts, North and South. Then, there would be little crossover between the two or there would be some crossover between the two divisions.

All those issues would have to be taken into consideration before a decision would be made.

Approving or denying such a change would have to be made by next fall in order to prepare the schedule for 2005.

“There are a lot of questions to be answered,” said Benson. “It’s way too early to say what the impact would be because it going to effect each sport different. In football, there probably won’t be any effect but in basketball it will have an effect and in baseball it will have an efftect. Each sport will be effected in a different manner.”