Oak Harbor leaving Sandusky Bay Conference

The high school conference realignment dominoes that have been falling in northwest Ohio this year reached the Sandusky Bay Conference on Wednesday when Oak Harbor announced it has accepted an invitation to join the Northern Buckeye Conference. The Northern Buckeye was looking to fill out its eight-team league and approached Oak Harbor last fall. Leaving the SBC, of which Oak Harbor has been a member since 1986, was not an easy decision, said OH athletic director Dan Hoover. "We've been dealing with this for four months, holding discussions and gathering information," Hoover said. "To be clear, we were not looking to get out of the SBC. The NBC came looking for us. "There are a lot of good schools (in the NBC) that we fit well with. I think it'll be mutually beneficial." Hoover expects Oak Harbor to remain in the SBC for two more years and begin play in the NBC in the fall of 2023. SBC president Nate Artino, the principal at Bellevue High School, citing league bylaws, expects Oak Harbor to remain in the SBC for two more years but said it's possible the timetable could be altered if all parties agree. The next scheduled meeting of the SBC's executive council -- which is made up of conference principals -- is in September. The SBC has 22 members in three divisions: the Lake, Bay and River. It will remain at 22 when Oak Harbor leaves because Woodmore announced last week that it is leaving the Northern Buckeye to join the SBC River Division in 2023. "With all the changes in the state and northwest Ohio, it's inevitable there will be dominoes," Artino said. "We're confident we'll find a way to make this work." The NBC must ratify Oak Harbor's admission. That is expected to be a formality. Oak Harbor superintendent Guy Parmigian said that more than 70 percent of the school's coaches favored moving to the Northern Buckeye, calling it "a crucial factor" in the school's decision. The Benton-Carroll-Salem Board of Education voted unanimously to make the move. "The level of stability and competition of the NBC really made it highly attractive for our students and community," Parmigian said. Oak Harbor was part of an eight-team SBC from 1986 to 2017. Other member schools during those three decades included Clyde, Huron, Margaretta, Perkins, Port Clinton, St. Mary Central Catholic and Edison. In the fall of 2017, the SBC expanded to three divisions and Oak Harbor landed in the six-team Bay. Hoover said the instability of being in that middle division was a key factor in Oak Harbor's decision to join another conference. "The original concept of the three divisions was to be eight schools in each (SBC) division," Hoover said. "That never really panned out with (the Bay) only having six. "If anything happened to any other school, that would leave a five-team division, which would be difficult to deal with." Along with Oak Harbor, the SBC Bay includes Edison, Huron, Margaretta (which is in the River for football), Port Clinton and Willard. Vermilion plays in the Bay for football and in the Lake for basketball and baseball. The big-school Lake Division has six football schools (Bellevue, Clyde, Norwalk, Sandusky, Tiffin Columbian and Perkins). Oak Harbor's departure could force some movement within the SBC's football divisions. With no Oak Harbor, the Lake Division would have six teams and the Bay would have only five. "The size difference is always a point of contention (in football). What does that look like going forward?" Artino said. "We can endure and find a way to make it work for everybody. You have to be open to out-of-the-box scheduling." The Northern Buckeye began looking for new members after Elmwood received an invitation last fall to join the Blanchard Valley Conference. Elmwood accepted earlier this year. Also, Maumee announced in March it will be leaving the Northern Lakes League for the Northern Buckeye. The Northern Lakes beefed up its conference with an announcement in April that it will add four teams from the Three Rivers Athletic Conference: Findlay, Fremont Ross, Oregon Clay and Toledo Whitmer. The addition of Maumee and losses of Woodmore and Elmwood left the Northern Buckeye with seven members going forward: Eastwood, Fostoria, Genoa, Lake, Maumee, Otsego and Rossford. Oak Harbor's addition will bring the Northern Buckeye back to eight. Hoover said Oak Harbor hopes to maintain its natural rivalries and continue playing Ottawa County neighbor Port Clinton in football. Artino said Oak Harbor has been "very open about its exploration of the NBC" and said the SBC remains a tight league. He did concede that geographic outliers such as Oak Harbor naturally have other options when it comes to conference affiliation. "The best part about our setup is there is strength in numbers," Artino said. "We've got a good group of schools that worked together for a long time before we were in the same conference."