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Five Catholic high schools from central and northeast Ohio will partner on football scheduling rather than move forward with a plan to create a new conference, DeSales assistant principal Jim Jones told The Dispatch on Monday.
The scheduling alliance between DeSales, Hartley, Watterson, Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit and Youngstown Ursuline will begin in 2026, which was the original plan for the Ohio Catholic Athletic Conference.
The OCAC was announced last July between those five schools, Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Youngstown Mooney. The goal was to alleviate scheduling issues and strengthen competition among several of the state’s strongest Catholic programs.
Mooney, St. Vincent-St. Mary and VASJ later backed out because of cost and travel concerns.
In February, Jones told The Dispatch the OCAC was forging ahead, but the remaining schools would have to make sure the new league would be “sustainable.” The original OCAC plans called for a football-only conference with potential expansion into other sports at a later date.
“At this point, we want to get things off to a great start with the alliance and see what takes shape from there,” Jones said Monday. “It’s something that we want to keep building and hopefully things will happen, and maybe even more teams will want to get involved, but right now we just have to work with what we have.”
DeSales, Hartley, Watterson and St. Charles will continue to play a CCL schedule, according to Jones, who has been the CCL commissioner since 2017. St. Charles was not involved with the OCAC.
With only three league contests, CCL teams are used to playing out-of-town teams and traveling to games.
“(The OCAC) just unraveled,” said Watterson coach Brian Kennedy, whose team won the Division III state title last fall. “We’ll play Ursuline and Walsh forever. We need games. For nothing other than scheduling, this was going to be nice. We already travel. Getting on a bus and driving for two or three hours to play a game doesn’t bother me. It’s trying to find games when everybody else is in league play.”
This isn’t the first time CCL members have partnered with out-of-area programs. They formed an alliance with the southwest Ohio-based Greater Catholic League in 2019 to alleviate issues with scheduling, but that lasted for one season.
“I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” Watterson athletic director Doug Etgen said. “I don’t mean that in a negative way towards any of the schools who backed out. We’ve been down this road before, so I’m very skeptical when these things start formulating. ... I’m disappointed because I was looking forward to some other opportunities in some other sports to do some neat things to tie our teams together.”
High school sports reporter Frank DiRenna can be reached at [email protected] and at @DispatchFrank on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Five Ohio Catholic high schools to partner on football scheduling
Continue reading...
The scheduling alliance between DeSales, Hartley, Watterson, Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit and Youngstown Ursuline will begin in 2026, which was the original plan for the Ohio Catholic Athletic Conference.
The OCAC was announced last July between those five schools, Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Youngstown Mooney. The goal was to alleviate scheduling issues and strengthen competition among several of the state’s strongest Catholic programs.
Mooney, St. Vincent-St. Mary and VASJ later backed out because of cost and travel concerns.
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In February, Jones told The Dispatch the OCAC was forging ahead, but the remaining schools would have to make sure the new league would be “sustainable.” The original OCAC plans called for a football-only conference with potential expansion into other sports at a later date.
“At this point, we want to get things off to a great start with the alliance and see what takes shape from there,” Jones said Monday. “It’s something that we want to keep building and hopefully things will happen, and maybe even more teams will want to get involved, but right now we just have to work with what we have.”
DeSales, Hartley, Watterson and St. Charles will continue to play a CCL schedule, according to Jones, who has been the CCL commissioner since 2017. St. Charles was not involved with the OCAC.
With only three league contests, CCL teams are used to playing out-of-town teams and traveling to games.
“(The OCAC) just unraveled,” said Watterson coach Brian Kennedy, whose team won the Division III state title last fall. “We’ll play Ursuline and Walsh forever. We need games. For nothing other than scheduling, this was going to be nice. We already travel. Getting on a bus and driving for two or three hours to play a game doesn’t bother me. It’s trying to find games when everybody else is in league play.”
This isn’t the first time CCL members have partnered with out-of-area programs. They formed an alliance with the southwest Ohio-based Greater Catholic League in 2019 to alleviate issues with scheduling, but that lasted for one season.
“I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” Watterson athletic director Doug Etgen said. “I don’t mean that in a negative way towards any of the schools who backed out. We’ve been down this road before, so I’m very skeptical when these things start formulating. ... I’m disappointed because I was looking forward to some other opportunities in some other sports to do some neat things to tie our teams together.”
High school sports reporter Frank DiRenna can be reached at [email protected] and at @DispatchFrank on X.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Five Ohio Catholic high schools to partner on football scheduling
Continue reading...
