The Eastern Connecticut Conference will expand from 13 to 15 football members in 2019, allowing the league to maintain its three division setup, but this time with five schools each.

Ledyard athletic director Jim Buonocore, the ECC football chair, confirmed Wednesday that Woodstock Academy, which played an independent schedule in 2018, will return to the ECC matrix while the Capital Region Education Council (CREC) cooperative program of Civic Leadership (Enfield), Aerospace (Windsor) and Metro Learning (Bloomfield), will join the conference as a football-only member.

Woodstock backed out of its ECC football commitment a year ago in hopes of joining the Evergreen Football League, a conference comprised of prep school programs. Those plans, however, failed to materialize, and the school reaffirmed its allegiance to the ECC.

"(Woodstock) has committed to the schedule and the new alignment," said Buonocore, noting that Woodstock administrators were part of the process when both the schedule and new alignment were recently approved.

Killingly, the reigning Class M champion, will move up to Division I and join East Lyme, Fitch, New London and Norwich Free Academy.

Division II will feature Bacon Academy, Ledyard, Stonington, Waterford and Woodstock, while CREC, Griswold, Montville, Plainfield and Windham will compete in Division III.

"The beauty of the ECC's new philosophy is it's now a year-by-year process, which I think is important," Buonocore said. "It's only been in effect for one season, but if you look across the board there have been a lot more competitive contests within our league ... and not just football. We've seen it in all of our fall sports.

"To all of us (athletic directors), we firmly believe in the short of time so far it has worked."

Buonocore said Division I and III schools are guaranteed five games within the conference and Division II schools have six guaranteed games (each Division I and III program will one Division II program).

But ECC schools, in addition to the master schedule, have also been encouraged to schedule games within the league if appropriate matchups can be worked out.

Buonocore used his own school as an example. Ledyard's generated games are Fitch (Division I) and Montville (Division III). But the Colonels have also agreed to play games against New London (Division I) and Windham (Division III).

In addition, Buonocore said all 15 schools have the option of participating in a state scheduling alliance. The group included the ECC, Southern Connecticut Conference and South-West Conference in 2018, but will expand to five in 2019 with the addition of the Central Connecticut Conference and Fairfield Country Interscholastic Athletic Conference.

"We'll be sitting down after the new year to create those alliance matchups," he said. "The great part now is with five leagues, it should easier to come up with appropriate matchups between schools that have similar sizes and strengths, which will help everyone fill their schedules with competitive games."

Al Carbone, commissioner of the SCC, added, "Ever since we, the three leagues (ECC, SCC and SWC), announced this alliance two years ago, we have a commissioner's meeting with all the leagues at the CIAC. We've made a presentation every time (about the alliance). 'We're doing this, do you want to come on board?'

"The FCIAC said this year that they were interested. They're coming in for one game (in 2019). ... The CCC is coming in for one game. So that's big. Actually, our league, the SWC and the ECC (its top tiered programs) will probably play at least four in that alliance. So it's going to be pretty interesting."

Carbone said the alliance tried to get the Naugatuck Valley League to join, but it wasn't interested at this time.

"Two years ago, I think people were like, 'ah, that's not going to work,'" Carbone said. "I think other leagues look at it now and say, 'Wow, they did a pretty good job of it the last two years.'"

c.banning@theday.com

2019 ECC FOOTBALL ALIGNMENT

Division I

East Lyme, Fitch, Killingly, New London, NFA

Division II

Bacon, Ledyard, Stonington, Waterford, Woodstock

Division III

CREC co-op, Griswold, Montville, Plainfield, Windham

Note: CREC (Capital Region Education Council) will be a football-only member with players from Aerospace of Windsor, Civic Leadership of Enfield and Metro Learning of Bloomfield.