Competitive-balance changes affect Valley teams

April 7, 2017 at 12:09a.m.

The OHSAA Board of Directors approved new divisional breakdowns for its fall sports programs at their April meeting and for the first time, will include competitive balance roster data for football, volleyball and soccer.

In OHSAA director of communications Tim Stried’s Thursday release he notes, “According to competitive balance regulations, the previous season’s roster data (grades 9-12) is used for affecting the following season’s additional roster count in the selected sports. The additional roster count is added to the school’s base enrollment number to determine the final adjusted enrollment count before divisional placements are made.”

It goes on to say, “Division assignments are based on school enrollment numbers provided by the Ohio Department of Education, and then modified in football, volleyball and soccer based on competitive balance factors that OHSAA member schools approved by referendum vote in 2014.”

Of the 718 football-playing schools throughout the state, 11 local schools are affected by the findings with two programs, West Branch and East Palestine, affected directly by the competitive balance equation.

The Warriors will move up to Division III this fall while the Bulldogs fall down a notch and will play in Division VI next season.

“I don’t care where we fall, we’re going to go where they tell us to go,” West Branch head coach D.J. Dota said. “No matter the rules, someone will always complain, but that’s just not me. We don’t even know our region, which won’t be announced until June 6. There’s nothing that we can do about it.”

One school, Newton Falls, moves up to Division V due to enrollment while four others — Poland (Division IV), Liberty (Division VI), Pymatuning Valley (Division VI) and Lisbon (Division VII) — move down a division for the very same reason.

“I can see both sides, but don’t have a strong opinion either way. It doesn’t impact our schedule and in our league, the All-American Conference, it won’t change anything,” Poland head coach Ryan Williams stated. “It will impact the play-offs, but I haven’t been able to think about that just yet. The reward is making the play-offs so that’s when we’ll think about it. The lesson we’ll teach is that you can only control what you can control.”

Liberty head coach Chet Allen, whose team played in Division V last year, is looking forward to the new challenge awaiting his Leopards in Division VI.

“It’s a Catch-22 in that we are now in a division with a lot of good teams, some of which are in our region,” Allen added. “We went from the lowest part of Division V to the top quarter of Division VI and while I don’t know how fair that is, we’ve played a lot of the better teams that comprise Division VI, which will only make us better.”

Arch-rivals Cardinal Mooney and Ursuline are both up a division for competitive balance, but will remain in Division VI.

Of the Fighting Irish’s nine games scheduled to date, six are against Division II teams, one against a Division III opponent and the other two within their division.

“As far as we’re concerned, it really makes no difference as we play five Division II opponents to start the season,” Ursuline head coach Larry Kempe said. “As I look at the movements, it’s interesting that even with competitive balance the end result didn’t happen. Our enrollment has stayed stable and competitive balance was supposed to level the playing field, but I’m not so sure they accomplished what they set out to accomplish.”

Cardinals head coach P.J. Fecko said it’s tough to appease everyone.

“I think by the end of the day we’re right where we started,” he said. “With the old system, the new system and even the next system, someone is still dissatisfied. With as many schools that the OHSAA oversees, you aren’t going to satisfy everyone.”

Two other schools, Western Reserve and United Local, are down a division when it comes to competitive balance but remain in Division VI for the upcoming season.

“The state is trying to address the situation so give them credit. Plus, you have to give them the opportunity to do so,” Blue Devils head coach Andy Hake said. “People just want things to be fair so you have to give the state an opportunity to address this.”