It looks like you can add the Forest Ridge High site to the list of battles that will divide new and old school board members starting in December.

As noted in today's article, the current board members, with the exception of Ron Margiotta, told staff to go ahead with plans for using the Forest Ridge High site. But Chris Malone said Wake should be prepared for a change in that plan when he and other new board members take office.

"They should have stopped today," Malone said. "We're going to push ahead and make them stop it."

The Knights travel to East Wake this afternoon for their first match up of the year at 6:30.

A little background: East Wake was a serious state playoff contender last year (a 30-plus win team) that got dropped in the first round by Fuquay-Varina. Ever since the team has struggled with "knowing how good it is, but not playing to that level" as coach DeLane Hayes has stressed several times this season.

Knightdale, which was no show-stopper last year, had a rough start to the 2009 season, but the team impressively knocked off Wake Forest Rolesville in its first win and showed, even if only for a couple hours, it can contend when needed. 

Those that like soccer need to check this one out, especially in light of the rivalry. It will be interesting to see which team can hold off for the big W.  

Changes are looming for how students will be selected to fill Wake County's magnet schools.

Asst. Supt. Chuck Dulaney told board members on Tuesday that his staff will be working on a formal board policy on magnet schools. This would help formalize the year-to-year guidelines that his staff develops.

One of the goals of the new board policy would be to try to address how some non-magnet schools are being negatively impacted by magnet schools. In other words, you could see changes that make it harder for some students to get into the magnet program.

UPDATE: LINKS AT END OF POST NOW WORKING 

The question of who has the longest bus rides was also on the minds of school board members on Tuesday.

As noted in today's article, staff stressed that voluntary magnet kids account for a majority of the longest bus rides in the district. But students who are bused for diversity also are in the group with the longest rides.

Bob Snidemiller, senior director for transportation, explained that the longest 5 percent of bus ride times have an average one-way ride of 64 minutes.

Pinecrest wins 4-A East Regional golf championship.

Wilson Hunt and Nash Central advance to Knight Round Table baseball finals on Tuesday.

The numbers crunchers will be interested in the school-by-school look at the magnet/calendar applicants.

For instance, Brentwood Elementary School drew 261 applicants to the new engineering magnet theme that will start in August. There were questions how well it would draw in its first year.

"Brentwood did a fabulous job of going out there and selling the program," said Laura Evans, a senior director in Growth and Planning.

Highlights from the Knightdale vs West Johnston conference championship game.

The schedules for this week's Greater Neuse River 4-A Conference basketball tournaments:

Tonight's (Monday) Girls' Quarterfinals: 

(No. 8) West Johnston at (No. 1) Southeast Raleigh, 7

(No. 5) Smithfield-Selma at (No. 4) Clayton, 7

(No. 7) Knightdale at (No. 2) Holly Springs, 7

(No. 6) Garner at (No. 3) East Wake, 7 

Tuesday's Boys' Quarterfinals:

(No. 8) Smithfield-Selma at (No. 1) Garner, 7

(No.  5) Southeast Raleigh at (No. 4) West Johnston, 7

(No. 7) Holly Springs at (No. 2) Knightdale, 7

(No. 6) East Wake at (No. 3) Clayton, 7

Only the top 16 wrestlers from each weight class in the region will get the chance to participate in the Eastern Individual Regional Wrestling Tournament this weekend at Knightdale High School.

Those 16 wrestlers are determined by their winning percentage. The tourney will also be seeded according to wrestlers’ winning percentage. Each school is only allowed to enter one wrestler per each of the 14 weight classes. There are 27 schools in the region, making competition pretty stiff.

Knightdale coach Alex Von Hoene said he has several kids who he will enter into the tournament, but only a few are basically assured of spots.

Those wrestlers include:

103 — Jaha Cruz
125 — Lacy Haig
130 — Jessica Haig
135 — Aaron Williams
140 — Antoine McLean
145 — Travis Newton
152 — Zack Russell
160 — Nick McClelland
215 — Sean Mason
285 — Jacob Horton

“I enter the best Knightdale wrestler in each weight class into the weight class I believe that is best for them as an individual and for the team,” Von Hoene said. “Since there are only 16 spots in the bracket available, some of our kids may be on the bubble — 17-27th seed.”

Von Hoene said if the wrestlers don’t qualify, their season is basically over, and that it typically takes around a 35 percent winning percentage to qualify for one of those top 16 spots in the event.

East Wake will send nine wrestlers to the event, pending the seeding works in their favor. The seeding takes place tonight (Wednesday night). All entries will be final after the seeding.

East Wake’s list for the regionals includes:

103 — Scott Staples
112 — Kerry Sarna
119 — Jordan Miller
130 — Greg Martin
135 — Jake Sullivan
145 — Conner Porter
152 — Mitchell Morgan
189 — J.J. Rodriguez
285 — Zach Burke

Warrior coach Mike Kendall said it will be nice to be so close to home — noting in the past he’s either had to host the event or travel a good ways and stay over night.

“I like our seeds for each of our kids,” Kendall said. “We may have some 8-or-9-seed wrestlers that can hopefully upset some No. 1 or No. 2 seeds if we wrestle well. Our record isn’t really indicative of our team. We’ve wrestled a brutal schedule. But we’ve had a great few days of practice here, as I’m sure everyone has, and our kids are really excited.”

Weigh-in begins at 4:30 p.m. Friday, wrestling follows at 5:30. Saturday’s events start with weigh-in at 8 a.m. and wrestling at 9.

I’ll be there, camera in hand, so be sure to expect some results from the regionals in next week’s edition of Eastern Wake News.