Brookfield confirms

it will remain in AAC

By Steve Ruman

sports@vindy.com

The Inter-Tri County League continues to evolve, and this time its evolution will affect other conferences involving local schools.

Earlier this week, both Campbell and Mathews acknowledged that they will join the Inter-Tri County League beginning with the 2017-18 school year.

Campbell currently is a member of the All American Conference, while Mathews belongs to the Northeastern Athletic Conference.

Brookfield, which was also invited to the join the ITCL, informed its league commissioner Rick King that it will remain in the AAC.

“On Tuesday within minutes of each other I received word from both Brookfield and Campbell of their decisions,” King said. “Obviously, we are pleased that Brookfield has chosen to stay, as we feel they are a great fit and a great asset to the AAC.

“Campbell, we hate to see go, but we understand that schools must do what is in the best interest of their student-athletes.”

Campbell athletic director Ron Aulet said that the decision to join the ITCL was based primarily on his school’s enrollment numbers.

“We very much enjoy the AAC and what it has to offer, but in the long run we just felt that with the size of our school, we’ll be more competitive in the ITCL,” Aulet said. “By no means do we expect to go to a new league and dominate, but we do feel like it gives us a better opportunity to compete and to improve our overall sports program.

“We’ve scheduled ITCL teams in the past, so it’s not going to be foreign to us. And at the same time, we hope we can continue with some of the rivalries we established with AAC schools.”

In an email sent by Mathews superintendent Lew Lowery to school district employees, Lowery stated that the decision to join the ITCL “was largely influenced by the relative stability of the ITCL in comparison to the NAC and by the proximity of the ITCL schools compared to the NAC.”

Lowery noted that a formal board resolution for withdrawal from the NAC and acceptance of the ITCL invitation will be made at the regularly scheduled board meeting next Wednesday.

Mathews football coach Mike Palumbo believes the move will greatly benefit the Mathews program. He noted that in the past year, NAC member Ledgemont dissolved its program, while Newbury canceled its Week 8 game with Mathews.

“From a football standpoint, this is a much better fit, and a much more stable fit,” Palumbo said. “Scheduling in the NAC is tough. We’ve had league games in Weeks 1 and 3, then we’re forced to find out-of-conference opponents late, and that’s tough to do. It’s forced us to do a lot of traveling.”

WFMJ-21 Sports Director Dana Balash confirmed that Windham and Toronto have also been invited the join the ITCL. Windham is a current member of the NAC, while Toronto belongs to the Ohio Valley Athletic Conference.

While ITCL commissioner Paul Adraso would not confirm the other invites, he acknowledged that the league did in fact send out five invitations. He expects to hear from the other schools by Dec. 10. On Dec. 16 the ITCL will hold a superintendents meeting to finalize the current expansion plans.

The 16-school ITCL currently operates on a three-tier system. The top two tiers include five schools, while the bottom tier is represented by six members. Even with the current additions, Andraso said the league will continue to seek membership.

“We scheduled crossover games, and in doing so we found that there was inequity in some of the scheduling,” Andraso said. “Several schools want to opt out of some of their crossover games, but at the same time it’s very tough finding out-of-conference football opponents for Weeks 4 through 10.

“Ideally, we’d love to have 24 schools, with eight schools in each tier. From a scheduling standpoint, that would solve a lot of headaches. In football, we would have conference games from week four on.”

King said that he was “very pleased” with the current 21-school makeup of the AAC, and expects that member schools will look to replace the void left by Campbell with a new addition.

“I’m sure it will be a big issue at our next meeting, but at the same time there won’t be a mad rush,” King said. “We’ll take our time and seek out a member or members which best suit our needs.”