Two basketball state tournaments moved to St. John
State championships for boys and girls basketball will return to Ohio State’s St. John Arena on at least a temporary basis, the Ohio High School Athletic Association announced on Thursday.
The girls state tournament will be held in St. John this coming school year, March 12-14, 2020. The boys state tournament will be held in the 63-year-old arena the following year, March 18-20, 2021.
Boys state tournaments have been played at Ohio State’s Value City Arena since 1999, a year after it opened. Girls tournaments have been played there since 2000, except for 2005, when it was held in St. John because of a scheduling conflict with Ohio State’s men’s hockey team.
In both upcoming cases, the tournaments will coincide with Ohio State’s spring break, which the OHSAA said will allow for better parking options for spectators while allowing Ohio State to keep Value City Arena available for the hockey team.
“We are excited to return to St. John Arena, where many schools and basketball fans have great memories,” OHSAA executive director Jerry Snodgrass said in a statement.
St. John Arena, completed in November 1956, has a capacity of 13,276. Value City Arena in the Jerome Schottenstein Center opened in 1998 and can seat 19,500 for basketball.
St. John had been unavailable for OHSAA competition because it has served as the practice and competition home for a number of Ohio State sports, including wrestling, women’s and men’s volleyball and women’s and men’s gymnastics. However, the opening of the Covelli Center will ease the competition for St. John.
Next March, the girls basketball state tournament will be held Thursday through Saturday and the high school wrestling tournament will be held Friday, March 13, through Sunday, March 15. The 2020 boys basketball state tournament will be held at Value City Arena a week later, March 19-21.
“We anticipate that our individual wrestling state tournament will remain at the Schottenstein Center for years to come, but our basketball state tournaments are more flexible and the scheduling conflicts at the Schottenstein Center those weekends are a reality,” Snodgrass said.