LAKEWOOD – The Lakewood School Board voted to have the Cougars join the Northwest Conference for all sports starting in 2016-17 at a meeting Feb. 17.

The vote comes just weeks after the Cascade Conference principals rejected a proposal to form classification-based football-only leagues with the Northwest Conference.

After that decision, the Northwest Conference voted to invite Lakewood into the league.

The Cougars will play only fellow 2A teams for football – including Anacortes, Bellingham, Blaine, Burlington-Edison, Lynden, Sedro-Woolley and Sehome – and all teams – including 3A teams Ferndale and Squalicum and 1A teams Lynden Christian, Meridian, Mount Baker and Nooksack Valley – in a 14-team conference for all other sports.

Squalicum and Ferndale will continue with a plan to join Wesco 3A teams for football only.

“It really started after the football league was voted down,” Lakewood football coach Dan Teeter said. “That’s when things were brought up, and we were invited by the Northwest Conference and things accelerated at that point. It really happened very quickly.

“The Northwest Conference, I believe, is the No. 1 2A conference in the state, bar none,” Teeter continued. “To get that invitation was an honor. The competition level, week in and week out, is going to be fantastic.”

For football, Lakewood will play seven league games against the other 2A schools, traveling to each school every other year. The Cougars will schedule two non-league games, with Teeter having already reached out to King’s to continue Lakewood’s rivalry with the Knights.

Lakewood traveling north could also take one postseason berth from the Cascade Conference along with it to the Northwest Conference. The two leagues will still have a crossover district tournament for the postseason, meaning Lakewood could face former Cascade Conference rivals like Archbishop Murphy or Cedarcrest in the postseason.

“It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s a challenge we’re looking forward to,” Teeter said. “We can’t wait. We’ve enjoyed being a part of the Cascade Conference. We wish them the best, and we’ll be pulling for them but we’re excited for our new opportunity.”

Competition seems to be a big factor in the move for Lakewood. Since 2010, the Lakewood football team is 28-0 against Cascade Conference teams that aren’t King’s or Archbishop Murphy, according to records on the online MaxPreps site.

And all 28 of those victories came by 10 points or more.

“In terms of football, all of our league games are going to be against 2A competition,” Teeter said. “We’re excited to compete against like schools. We believe that the tougher competition will raise the bar for us.”

Teeter said that other sports may try to keep natural rivalries going with non-league games. For all other sports – including baseball, soccer, wrestling, cross country, volleyball, basketball, golf, tennis and track – teams will play the other 13 schools in the Northwest Conference.

“We looked at the driving distance and driving times,” Teeter said. “It is a little more. We crunched the numbers with the financial guys in the district, and they worked out to not be that significant. Almost every school there is right along the I-5 corridor and going north you’re not going into traffic.”