Move to more divisions should help locals
- col-aaron-dorksen
- March 6, 2024
- 723
A few thoughts from the week in sports …
The OHSAA Board of Directors’ decision to expand the number of playoff divisions for seven sports on Feb. 15 was one of the biggest changes in our state’s prep history.
Beginning in the 2024-25 school year, girls volleyball, boys and girls basketball, and baseball and softball will expand from four to seven divisions while boys and girls soccer will grow from three to five divisions.
The vote does not include any expansion to the football postseason, which already has seven divisions. The board left a number of other sports unchanged including track and field and wrestling. They remain at three divisions. I’m hearing track and field will likely go to four divisions soon.
There’s a lot to take in when evaluating this huge change, but after considering the move and talking to coaches and OHSAA officials, the pros far outweigh the cons. It’s good to see kids get a chance to compete against more similar-sized schools.
The two big criticisms I’ve heard about the OHSAA expansion have been “it’s a cash grab by the OHSAA” and “it will water down the tournament.”
I’ve always tried to tell both sides of a story as a reporter and weigh all the facts as a columnist, so I called Tim Stried, OHSAA director of media relations, and specifically brought up these complaints. Stried welcomed any questions and offered some excellent insight.
Stried was able to explain clearly that the “cash” criticism is simply false. In fact, the OHSAA might actually lose money overall by expanding the playoffs.
“This is not an additional round of the tournament,” Stried said. “In the sports we’re talking about, all those schools already make the tournament.
“That’s the biggest piece of data I can use to explain why it's not a cash grab. We expanded the football playoffs to give more schools more opportunities. It wasn’t to make more money, but we’ve been open that it does bring in more revenue. This is not that.”
Some critics will follow up with the argument that more games will be added at the regional and state levels, but Stried pointed out that the OHSAA expenses go up at that point for reimbursing travel expenses, paying officials and renting sites.
“It’s really like an apples and oranges comparison adding rounds to the football playoffs and adding more divisions in sports where everyone already makes the tournament,” Stried said.
OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute said in a statement that Ohio is the fourth-largest state in the country in terms of number of schools but that the number of divisions doesn’t reflect that size compared to smaller states.
“It’s the right thing to do for the student-athletes who have been competing at this disadvantage,” Ute said. “For too long the largest schools in our divisions have been so much larger than the smaller schools in the same division, which has resulted in many schools accepting that they realistically have little chance at making a run in the tournament.”
As for watering down the tournament, that’s a more subjective topic.
Stried pointed out that there are more than 800 schools in Ohio that play basketball, and later this month, only four boys and girls teams will win state titles. Next year seven girls and boys teams out of 800-plus schools will win titles.
“Does that mean it's watered down?” Stried asked. “People want to throw that out there, and we say that is not accurate to think because of how many schools we have.”
The expansion helps alleviate the big disadvantage for smaller schools in current divisions while also giving more schools the chance to even reach a district championship.
“When we expanded to seven divisions in football, what you saw is that schools that used to be small Division I schools are now in Div. II,” Stried said. “We're seeing schools have enrollments that better suit them for Div. II.
“That football model is what the board wanted to do with this expansion. It all comes back to putting schools in tournaments where they are more like the schools they're playing from an enrollment standpoint.”
Local effect
This expansion should help Wayne and Holmes county schools, especially Wooster. The Generals have usually been one of the smallest Div. I schools in the postseason tournaments.
“We are excited to see the new format put in place,” Wooster Athletic Director Alex Mallue said. “For us specifically, there have been instances where we have faced schools with over double the enrollment in the tournament recently: boys soccer regional semifinals loss to St. Ignatius in 2022 and baseball district final win over St. Ignatius in 2023.
“St. Ignatius has an enrollment of 1,053 boys, and Wooster has 426 boys. While our student-athletes and coaches are happy and ready to take on anybody in the tournament, there is a bit of a question of equity in games such as those, and I think the OHSAA addressed it with this expansion vote.”
Triway's Justin McDowell, co-athletic director/baseball coach, also is a big fan of the expansion.
“The expanded divisions will allow more opportunities for our student-athletes, and that is something that I think everyone is in favor of,” McDowell said. “We have had good success the past three years across the board in all of our sports, highlighted by state championships in girls bowling and softball in 2022.
“I am not sure how they are going to handle state semifinal games in the different sports, so that is something that will be interesting to follow.”
Hosting opportunities
Wayne County schools with excellent facilities could have more opportunities to host postseason games.
“We are often asked to host neutral-site tournament events and are happy to do so as long as it doesn't conflict with our teams' practice/game schedules,” Mallue said. “With our central location and quality of facilities, I think that we are an attractive host site for numerous sports. Once our baseball and softball turf project is complete, we would be very open to hosting neutral OHSAA baseball and softball tournament events.”
McDowell concurred that he can envision Triway also adding more tournament games.
“We are excited about the future at Triway and being under one roof, but we haven’t had any formal discussions yet about what that looks like as far as hosting,” McDowell said. “Our new facilities will allow us the capability and flexibility to be able to do many things.”
Aaron Dorksen can be emailed at aarondorksen24@gmail.com.