SBAAC expansion body recommends addition of WHS, EC, CM

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GOSHEN — The Southern Buckeye Athletic & Academic Conference Expansion Committee is recommending the league add Wilmington, Clinton-Massie and East Clinton to its roster beginning with the 2017-18 school year, according to Blanchester Supt. Dean Lynch.

The recommendation from the expansion committee will go to the SBAAC Executive Board — league superintendents and commissioner Pat Hall — which is expected to vote on the move at a special meeting to be held March 17. Originally the league’s executive board was to meet April 6.

The expansion committee met Monday morning at Goshen High School with representatives present from Clinton-Massie and East Clinton school districts. A conference call was conducted with officials from the Wilmington City Schools District.

Lynch said following the meeting with the three prospective schools, the expansion committee “spent considerable time” with South Central Ohio League commissioner Jim Winner.

“Inviting the SCOL commissioner and the schools allowed the committee to better assess its decision as to whether or not to move forward with a recommendation to the Executive Board,” said Lynch, who sits on the league’s expansion committee. “Sportsmanship was a topic of discussion, as was being committed to the SBAAC. All three schools represented their district’s well and gave strong supporting answers to the questions asked of them. It was evident the three schools did their homework on multiple leagues.”

The expansion committee then met for an hour, Lynch said, to discuss whether or not to expand and “unanimously concluded” to make the recommendation to the executive board.

Should the executive board approve the addition of the three districts, the expansion committee thought it would be best to move our meeting up from April 6 to allow the current and future league members time to act on the invitation and give athletic directors additional time to work through scheduling for the 2017-18 school year, Lynch said.

Blanchester is currently a member of the SBAAC. Other full-time members are Amelia, Batavia, Bethel-Tate, Clermont Northeastern, Felicity-Franklin, Georgetown, Goshen, New Richmond, Norwood, Western Brown and Williamsburg. Fayetteville is a member of the SBAAC for football only but remains a member of the Southern Hills Athletic Conference in all other sports.

Following the 2016-17 school year, Amelia and Norwood will leave the SBAAC.

All three county schools are members of the South Central Ohio League. Five current SCOL schools — Chillicothe, Hillsboro, McClain, Miami Trace and Washington — are looking to leave the league following the 2016-17 season.

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By Mark Huber

[email protected]

Reach Mark Huber at 937-556-5765, or on Twitter @wnjsports.

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