UIL officials released district realignments this morning and Lake Highlands is scheduled to face new opponents next season.

The Lake Highlands Wildcats raise the Bi-District Championship trophy after beating South Grand Prairie 43-36 in the first round of the 2025 playoffs. Courtesy of Mike Duhon Photography.

From 2026 to 2028, Wildcat football and basketball, along with the other RISD schools (Richardson, Pearce and Berkner), will continue to compete in District 7-6A. Lake Highlands volleyball will also stay in 7-6A through next season.

As for new foes, the Wildcats will begin playing Plano, Plano East and Plano West rather than Irving, Irving Nimitz and Irving MacArthur. In the realignment, the Irving ISD schools moved to District 8-6A.

Another school leaving the fold is Jesuit, which has played against Lake Highlands since 2020-2021. The Rangers will compete in District 6-6A moving forward.

Replacing Jesuit as the eighth team in the district is Coppell, which last played in the Wildcats’ district from 2016 to 2018. Coppell basketball beat Lake Highlands, 72-67, earlier this season and the football team knocked the Wildcats out of the second round of the playoffs in 2024-2025.

The new schools offer a large jump in enrollment from the Wildcats’ previous opponents, thus creating a jump in competition. Out of Dallas-area programs, the Plano schools have the second, third and sixth highest enrollments and Coppell has the fourth. 

Jesuit and Irving ISD, however, lean toward the lower end of enrollment for 6A. MacArthur ranks 57th, Nimitz ranks 58th, Jesuit ranks 59th and Irving ranks 64th, the second-smallest enrollment in 6A.

Now Lake Highlands, which has the 27th highest enrollment, will be punching upwards at schools with a larger student body. The Wildcats do have a higher enrollment than their RISD counterparts, totaling 2,932 students. 

Realignment can be confusing, so the SportsDay desk at the Dallas Morning News put together an FAQ for anyone curious about the process.

With districts set, coaches will begin the scheduling process for the upcoming football season and soon, we’ll know Lake Highlands’ 2026-2027 slate of games.