Despite the risk, the move almost seemed inevitable and appears to be a good fit.

It might be too simplistic to say that St. Augustine has outgrown the Cape, but this is a school that in the last few years has elevated a number of its sports teams.

Athletic director Tony Iaconelli acknowledged that the catalyst for making the move was St. Augustine's getting a forfeit win last weekend in football when Lower Cape May didn't have enough available players.

Iaconelli said the move has been discussed for a while because even though St. Augustine is in Richland, Atlantic County, it has received an increasing number of students from Olympic Conference areas.

A school official said that many students come from Washington Township, and more are attending from Medford, two staples of the Olympic Conference, with Washington Township High, and Shawnee and Lenape from Medford.

And while Cape-Atlantic League president and Vineland athletic director Don Robbins expressed regret about St. Augustine's leaving, many schools will tell the Hermits not to let the door hit them on the way out.

The biggest reason is that St. Augustine can draw students from multiple counties, an advantage when it faces a public school that gets students from one town.

"We're not nearly as popular as we used to be," Iaconelli said. "Realistically, from a competitive standpoint, our enrollment is up, we are a swing school having a difficult time getting sub-varsity events, and overall this seems like a better fit for us."

It's funny, but when St. Augustine's football program was floundering, nobody seemed to mind that the Hermits were a member of the small-school Cape National. From 1996 through 2005, the Hermits didn't have a winning season.

Coach Dennis Scuderi, who took over in 2005, has turned the program around, and so many decisions and perceptions are made because of football.

The Hermits have long been one of South Jersey's top basketball teams, and are dominant either on the local or state level in several other sports.

The Olympic Conference will afford the Hermits more competition. St. Augustine is a boys' school that has an enrollment of 958 in grades 10-12 for NJSIAA purposes. It's actually half that number, but the NJSIAA guidelines count a school with just one gender as double its enrollment total.

St. Augustine still needs to be let out of its Cape-Atlantic commitment. League bylaws mandate that a school needs to give a two-year notice. The only thing that can change that is if the other Cape schools vote to allow St. Augustine to leave now.

It has to be a unanimous vote. Though St. Augustine is confident that could happen, nothing is assured.

Then the Hermits would have to be voted in by the Olympic Conference, something that can't be done for 90 days after the application was received. That application arrived on Sept. 25.

Robbins said the Cape-Atlantic constitution says that it must have fall schedules by Dec. 1., which is before the 90-day period.

So if St. Augustine is let out of its Cape-Atlantic League commitment in a vote on Oct. 14, it still won't know its Olympic fate for a while.

Olympic Conference president Tony Mitchell, the athletic director at Paul VI, said St. Augustine would need a two-thirds vote (13 out of 19) to get in.

That's why there is a chance that St. Augustine could compete as an independent for up to two years.

The best-case scenario would have the Hermits competing by the fall in the Olympic.

The Olympic Conference always has strived for the best possible competition, so it seems it would welcome St. Augustine, despite the public school-parochial school inequities.

St. Augustine's arrival would strengthen what already is perceived as South Jersey's top conference and give the Hermits more challenging competition.

That's not to suggest St. Augustine didn't get top competition in the Cape, but it would reach a higher level in the Olympic.

This is a move that is good for the Cape, St. Augustine, and the Olympic. Whether it happens now or in a few years will be a closely watched development in South Jersey.

or mnarducci@phillynews.com.