Bellevue to the Bay, Willard to the River in SBC football

The realignment dominoes fell in the Sandusky Bay Conference on Wednesday and the most impactful change is Bellevue football's move from the Lake Division to the Bay. The SBC principals met at Terra State University and unanimously passed a new plan that calls for five football teams in the Lake, five in the Bay and eight in the River. The plan will take effect in 2023 and last two seasons. Bellevue principal Nate Artino, the president of the SBC, said the league relied on bylaws already in place to make the moves, which he called "a process to sustain this league." Once the SBC determined that it would move forward with five teams in the Lake and five in the Bay, enrollment figures averaged from the last two state counts were the determining factor in placing teams in divisions. And it was close. Bellevue and Perkins each had 252 boys in grades 9-11 in the Oct. 31, 2018 count -- the most recent used by the OHSAA because last year's count was postponed due to the pandemic. The 2016 count showed 267 boys at Perkins and 261 at Bellevue, which meant the average of those counts sent the Redmen -- a traditional power currently ranked No. 8 in the state in Division IV -- down to the Bay. The league felt it needed to make a change after Bay member Oak Harbor announced in May that it is leaving for the Northern Buckeye Conference starting with the 2023-24 school year. "I'm very proud that we've been able to keep this together and sustain the league with a wide range of needs and enrollments," Artino said. "There was a thought that we could rely on our strength in numbers. It's not perfect, but it never is." Artino said the SBC considered combining the Lake and Bay schools to form a 10-team league, but instead went with a 5-5-8 division model for football. That will include two mandatory crossover games between Lake and Bay schools, a change that could help football teams that have had trouble filling their nonconference schedules, such as Clyde, cut down on three-hour bus rides to play football games. "Some of the Bay schools felt that their best chance to compete for championships would be to go to two divisions," Artino said. Artino said Bellevue will try to schedule Lake teams in addition to what will be four Bay Division games. The new five-team Lake Division will consist of Sandusky, Tiffin Columbian, Norwalk, Clyde and Perkins. The Bay will include Bellevue, Vermilion, Port Clinton, Huron and Edison. The new division breakdown could change again in 2025 after the conference crunches new enrollment figures that will be released by the OHSAA next spring. That data will determine the SBC's look for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. It would not be a surprise if there are more changes, considering just eight boys separated the enrollments of Vermilion (248), Bellevue (252), Perkins (252) and Clyde (256) in the most recent count. The eight River Division football schools in 2023 will be Willard (which is dropping down from the Bay), Margaretta, Fremont St. Joseph, Tiffin Calvert, Gibsonburg, Lakota, Hopewell-Loudon and newcomer Woodmore. Artino said having eight teams in the River helps the division populated by the SBC's smallest schools. "With the ever-changing 8-man landscape, this gives the River more stability," Artino said. Bellevue basketball will remain in a six-team Lake Division with Sandusky, Columbian, Norwalk, Clyde and Perkins. Vermilion, which moved up to the Lake in basketball in 2019, will move back down to the Bay and join Edison, Huron, Margaretta, Port Clinton and Willard. The River will have 10 basketball teams, including St. Mary Central Catholic and Danbury, which no longer play 11-man football. Artino said conference athletic directors met last week to examine the proposal after a subcommittee formulated the idea. The SBC debuted in 1948-49 with seven schools -- Port Clinton, Fremont St. Joseph, Lakeside, Oak Harbor, Gibsonburg, Elmore and Genoa. In the mid-80s and beyond, the SBC was an eight-team league that included Clyde, Oak Harbor, Huron, Margaretta, Perkins, Port Clinton, Edison and St. Mary CC. Expansion pushed the SBC to more than 20 schools in 2017. The league has stayed mostly intact in recent years as realignment has trickled down from colleges to high schools. "It's difficult, but we've always said we need to be fluid. The landscape of change has been going on for 17, 18 years," Artino said. "Will that continue? I'm not sure it won't. But we've always felt there's strength in numbers."