Area games rescheduled because of Buckeyes

Less than a hour after Ohio State routed Oregon in the Rose Bowl, Sandusky athletic director Steve Camella received a text from his Clyde counterpart, Ryan Greenslade. The Clyde AD was inquiring about changing the date of a boys basketball game between the two schools that was scheduled for this Friday. As most people in Ohio know, that's the day the Buckeyes will play Texas in the Cotton Bowl. The College Football Playoff semifinal is scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. Friday — the normal tipoff time for high school basketball games. Clyde suggested moving the game with the Blue Streaks to Thursday before the two Sandusky Bay Conference schools settled on playing Wednesday in Clyde. The reason was simple. "It's Ohio State football," Camella said. "Buckeye fans don't want to miss a critical game that could lead to a national championship." The Sandusky-Clyde game is one of several in the area originally scheduled for Friday to be moved to another day or start earlier on Friday. The Edison at Port Clinton game scheduled for Friday has been moved to Saturday, January 18. The St. Mary Central Catholic game at Gibsonburg has been moved back 24 hours to Saturday. Western Reserve's home game against Crestview will be played this Thursday and South Central's home game against New London was moved back to Saturday. Four area games have moved up the start of junior varsity matchups to 4:30 p.m. Friday to allow the varsity teams to tip off at around 6. Those games include Bellevue at Perkins, Columbian at Norwalk, Mapleton at Monroeville and Plymouth at St. Paul. The Margaretta-Willard JV game at Willard is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m., which means fans attending that varsity game will miss the kickoff between the Buckeyes and Longhorns. Two area games will start at the normal time Friday — Vermilion at Huron and Woodmore at Danbury. PC originally wanted to move up the start time against Edison on Friday, but that plan would not work out logistically. Port Clinton athletic director Rick Dominick reached out to Edison AD Kristen Hayden shortly after the Rose Bowl. "She had already thought about it. It wasn't a big surprise," Dominick said. The rescheduled date was confirmed Monday. "We found a common date and my assigner felt good about getting officials so we did it," Dominick said. Moving games because of Ohio State football is nothing new in the Buckeye State. Dominick was the Redskins' junior varsity coach when Ohio State upset Miami in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 3, 2003, to win a national championship. Port Clinton was scheduled to play at Oak Harbor that night. "We moved the JV game up to 3:30 or 4 — this was before we had tripleheaders," Dominick said. "We were all finished and in front of our TVs for kickoff."