Lakes Conference

The Lakes Conference is a high school athletic conference whose members are located in mid-sized cities in northwest Iowa. Most of the schools are located in their respective county seats.

Member Schools

The conference's current lineup consists of seven schools from seven different counties in northwestern Iowa. Since Iowa is the only state in the nation that maintains separate governing bodies for boys' and girls' athletics, the classifications are different for each gender.
The Iowa High School Athletic Association is divided into classes 4A, 3A, 2A, 1A, A, and 8-player for football while the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union is divided into classes 1A to 5A.

Institution	Location	Colors	Affiliation	2019-2020 Enrollement	Mascot	Football Class	Girls Volleyball Class
Estherville-Lincoln Central	Estherville		Public	293	Midgets Midgettes	2A	3A
Spencer	Spencer		Public	477	Tigers	3A	4A
Spirit Lake	Spirit Lake		Public	258	Indians	2A	3A
Storm Lake	Storm Lake		Public	558	Tornadoes	3A	4A
Washington	Cherokee		Public	231	Braves	1A	3A
Western Christian	Hull		Private	197	Wolfpack	1A	2A

Sports

The conference offers the following sports:

Fall —volleyball, boys' cross-country, girls' cross-country, girls' swimming
Winter — Boys' basketball, girls basketball, wrestling and boys' swimming.
Spring — Boys' track and field, girls' track and field, boys' soccer, girls' soccer, boys' tennis, girls' tennis, boys' golf and girls' golf.
Summer — Baseball and softball.
History

The Lakes Conference dates back to the mid-1940s when Storm Lake, Cherokee, Spirit Lake, Sibley, Sheldon, Emmetsburg, Estherville, and Spencer formed the league. For over four decades, the conference had no membership changes. In the 1980s, Sibley merged with nearby Ocheyedan High School and left the conference in 1990 to join the Siouxland Conference. Estherville also merged with Lincoln Central High School in the mid-1990s to form Estherville-Lincoln Central High School. For the 1993-94 academic year, LeMars was added to the conference lineup.
Hull Western Christian joined the Lakes in 1997-98. Since joining the Lakes, Western Christian has participated in 8 state basketball tournaments and won the 2A championship in 2006-07, becoming the first league school to win the state title since Estherville in 1986-87. They followed this up by repeating as state champs in 2007-08, and winning another title in 2009-10.
The Lakes Conference sponsored football for over 50 years before the Iowa High School Athletic Association realigned all levels of football into a two-year evolving districts format. Because of this change, many of the schools do not compete against each other in football.
Though all the schools currently compete in either classes 2A or 3A, most were once in the highest level of classification for the Iowa High School Athletic Association. With the addition of a fourth class in the 1980s, however, none of the conference schools met the enrollment requirement to be in this largest class. In addition, most of the schools are currently seeing a slight decline in their enrollment. As recently as 5 years ago seven of the league's eight schools were in class 3A, the second highest class in Iowa. Today Storm Lake, and Spencer consistently fall in the top fifteen biggest schools in class 3A while Estherville-Lincoln Central and Spirit Lake often flip between class 2A and class 3A depending on their enrollment for the school year. Hull Western Christian and Cherokee are solidly in class 2A and are not expected to change classes any time soon.

Recent Conference Membership Changes

In 2009-10, Sheldon left the conference to join the Siouxland Conference. Sheldon officials cited travel distances as the reason for making the jump, as five schools from the Siouxland Conference are closer to Sheldon than the second-closest Lakes Conference school.
In 2017 Emmetsburg, a founding member of the Lakes Conference, left the conference to join the Twin Lakes Conference. Emmetsburg officials cited school size comparisons and a lack of ability to compete successfully in the Lakes Conference as the two main reasons for the switch.
In March of 2018, Le Mars Community announced that it would be leaving the Lakes Conference to join the Missouri River Activities Conference. Le Mars officials explained that they chose to leave due to the instability of the Lakes Conference, disparity of the sizes of schools in the Lakes Conference, and a lack of consistent high-caliber competition from top to bottom in the conference on a yearly basis. Le Mars Community participated in Lakes Conference competition for the 2018-2019 school year before leaving for the Missouri River Activities Conference for the 2019-2020 school year.
Lakes Conference officials have said that they are working to find other schools to bring the conference back up to seven, eight, or even more members. However, until this happens, the conference will temporarily run as a six-school conference. If no school will agree to join the conference after Le Mars's departure, conference officials will meet to discuss future options, including continuing with six teams or disbanding the conference.

State Tournament Success

The Lakes Conference has a very successful history in the state tournament.

Football http://www.iahsaa.org/football/ARCHIVES/archives.htmlhttps://www.iahsaa.org/football/ARCHIVES/FB.4.CHAMPGAME.results.pdf

Dome Qualifiers:
Estherville:
State Runner-up: 1987
Spencer:
Semifinalist: 1990, 1991
State Champion: 1994
Spirit Lake:
State Runner Up: 2011
State Champion: 2012
State Champion: 2015
Western Christian:
State Runner Up: 2015
State Champion: 2016

Volleyball

Western Christian
State Semifinalist: 2009
State Runners-up: 1999, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
State Champions: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2015, 2016
Spencer:
State Qualifier: 2006

Boys Basketball http://www.iahsaa.org/basketball/Archives/archives.html

Western Christian
State Qualifier: 2001, 2015
Third Place Finish: 2009
State Runners-up: 2011
State Championships: 1985, 1991, 1996, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017
Cherokee:
State Qualifier: 1952, 1975, 1984
Estherville:
State Qualifiers: 1986, 1991
State Champion: 1987
Storm Lake:
State Qualifier: 1945, 1956, 1963, 1965, 1969, 1979, 1994
State Runners-up: 1970
State Champion: 1968, 1980
Spencer:
State Qualifier: 1995, 1998, 2003, 2004
State Runner Up: 1976,
Spirit Lake:
State Qualifier: 1921, 1922, 1923, 1925, 1927, 1942
State Runner Up: 1920, 1928

Girls Basketball http://db.desmoinesregister.com/girls-basketball-stats/page=3&searchterms%5Bcol2%5D=Tournament%2C+Championship&searchterms%5Bcol8%5D=&searchterms%5Bcol9%5D=&searchterms%5Bcol3%5D=&searchterms%5Bcol5%5D

Six on six state tournament qualifiers:
Estherville:
State Qualifier: 1979
State Champion: 1982
Five on five state tournament qualifiers:
Cherokee:
State Qualifier: 2003
State Semifinalist: 2005
Estherville-Lincoln Central:
State Qualifier: 2012
State Runner Up: 1999, 2011
Storm Lake:
State Qualifier: 1979, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2010
State Runner Up: 1994
Spencer:
State Qualifier: 2003, 2004, 2009
Spirit Lake:
State Qualifier: 2006
State Runner Up: 2007
Western Christian:
State Qualifier: 1998, 2000, 2002, 2015
State Runner Up: 2016
State Champion: 2012, 2013, 2014, 2017

Boys Soccer http://www.iahsaa.org

Spencer:
3rd place: 2008
State Champion: 2009
Storm Lake:
State Qualifier: 2006, 2017
State Runner Up: 2013, 2016

Girls Soccer http://www.ighsau.org

Spencer
State Qualifier: 2015

Baseballhttp://www.iahsaa.org/baseball/2013_Baseball_StatBook.pdf

Cherokee:
State Qualifier: 2006, 2010
State Semifinalist: 2005, 2009
State Runner Up: 2008
State Champion: 2007
Estherville-Lincoln Central:
State Qualifier: 2008, 2017, 2018
Storm Lake:
State Qualifier: 1981, 2010, 2011
State Runner Up: 2009
Spencer:
State Champion: 1991, 1997
State Runner Up: 1999

Softball

Spirit Lake
Spirit Lake has qualified for the state tournament multiple times and won the state championship in 2004

Girls Bowling

Girls bowling became a sanctioned sport in 2015

None

Boys Bowling

Boys bowling became a sanctioned sport in 2013

Cherokee
State Qualifier: 2014

Boys Tennis