Federal League to stay at 7 schools

Staff report

The Federal League will remain at seven teams for the foreseeable future.

The league distributed a statement on Tuesday that its Strategic Planning Committee studied several proposals in the wake of Austintown Fitch’s decision to leave the league at the end of the current school year.

Fitch announced in the spring that it was leaving the Federal League to join the All-American Conference in all sports except football.

The Falcons’ football team will play all seven Federal League opponents in 2011, but none of the games will count in the league standings and Fitch players will not be eligible for all-league awards.

Boardman remains a member of the Federal League.

In the statement, the Federal League discussed several options, including a proposal to add Massillon as a replacement for Fitch, and to invite several new schools to create a 12- or 14-team, two-division league.

“As each of the above planning points was discussed, the overall feeling of the Strategic Planning Committee was to recommend to the member schools that the league remain a seven-team league,” said the league in the statement.

The statement further noted that the “overall best plan would have been to create a two-division format. However, there was not interest from schools in the geographic area of the existing league members to do so.”

The league also considered travel consideration for Boardman, being the lone non-Stark County school in the league.

Several schools, in addition to Massillon, were reportedly considered for expansion plans, including Green, in Summit County.

“Current league members felt that any additional league membership should not create a situation where a current member school would consider leaving the league,” the statement read.

A call to Boardman athletic director Dave Smercansky on Tuesday was not returned.