OHSAA to explore adding postseason tournament divisions in seven sports
Dave Purpura
The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced Wednesday that it will formally study the expansion of tournament divisions in seven sports, potentially enacting change as early as 2024.
The sports in question are baseball, boys basketball, girls basketball, boys soccer, girls soccer, softball and girls volleyball.
Soccer has three divisions, and the other sports have four.
OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute announced the study in a memo to member schools.
An exact number of expanded divisions was not specified, but an OHSAA release said “changes could mirror the OHSAA’s current football model, which puts a smaller number of the state’s largest schools (the top 10%) in Division I.”
Football has had seven divisions since 2013.
“Almost since day one when I became executive director (in September 2020), many administrators and coaches have expressed interest in expanding tournament divisions in several of our sports,” Ute said in the release. “The Board of Directors has been very supportive when discussing this, and I have been pleased that we seem to be on the same page and could possibly have a proposal in front of the Board in the very near future.”
Ute did not rule out tournament division expansion in other sports.
According to the release, the enrollment difference from the top to the bottom of schools in baseball, basketball, soccer, softball and girls volleyball in Division I is an average of 939 students, with highs of 955 in boys soccer (346-1,301), 954 in boys basketball (346-1,300), 944 in baseball (356-1,300) and 940 in girls volleyball (319-1,249).
Any proposed changes to the number of divisions would need to be approved by a majority vote of the board of directors because those are part of the organization’s General Sports Regulations, the OHSAA release said.