Mooney, Ursuline receive NCL invites

Decision expected

after meeting today

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

The wheels are in motion for Ursuline and Cardinal Mooney high schools to once again be in a conference for football.

Sean Durkin, Ursuline’s athletic director, said on Thursday that his school and Mooney have been invited to join North Coast League, a league for private schools.

“They want us,” Durkin said. “We’re pretty excited.”

Today at 9:30 a,m., Durkin and Don Bucci, Mooney’s athletic director, will attend a North Coast Conference meeting at Walsh Jesuiit High School in Cuyahoga Falls.

If accepted, it will be the first time that the Mooney and Ursuline football teams will play in a league since the Steel Valley Conference disbanded in 2003 and both schools became independents.

The North Coast League has 12 members. In the Blue Division are Archbishop Hoban (Akron), Cleveland Benedictine, Mentor Lake Catholic, Notre Dame-Cathedral Latin (Chardon), Parma Padua and Walsh Jesuit.

The White Division has Valley Christian, Warren JFK, Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph, Cleveland Central Catholic, Louisville St. Thomas Aquinas and Garfield heights Trinity.

WFMJ Channel 21, The Vindicator’s broadcast partner, has reported that Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary and Hunting Valley University School also have been invited.

If the league expands for football, it could begin in 2017.

Durkin said that for now the league would be only for football, but could expand for other sports.

“There could be more,” Durkin said.

When it ended, the Steel Valley Conference included Boardman, Fitch and Warren Harding for all sports. The league broke up when Fitch and Harding joined the Federal League. All three schools are now members of the All-American Conference.