ITCL commissioner: Seven want to bolt

March 1, 2016 at 12:00a.m.

Seven former members of the defunct Tri-County League are looking to put the band back together.

This time, it appears it won’t be with Crestview.

Paul Andraso, commissioner of the Inter-Tri County League, said on Monday that seven Columbiana County schools have sent letters to the ITCL asking to withdraw from the league for the 2017-18 school year.

Columbiana, East Palestine, Leetonia, Lisbon, Southern, United and Wellsville have requested to leave the league that turns 11 in the fall.

The other league members are Crestview, South Range, Springfield, Jackson-Milton, Lowellville, Sebring, Western Reserve, McDonald and Mineral Ridge.

“This thing has been brewing for a while,” Andraso said, adding that animosity is being shown to two or three schools. He declined to identify them.

Andraso said the seven defecting schools are planning to form a new league with Toronto.

Asked if the ITCL could exist if the remaining nine schools stay put, Andraso said “it could” but he expects more resignation letters before the May 1 deadline.

He expects that would lead to a new league made up of most of the remaining ITCL schools.

Last week, the ITCL superintendents rejected a proposal to add Campbell and Waterloo to make an 18-team, three-tier league.

For the first nine seasons, the ITCL was split into two divisions of bigger and smaller schools. Last summer, the league shifted to a three-tiered league in an effort to appease smaller schools unhappy with having to schedule the bigger ones.