Familiar faces, new foes await

OHSAA tournament draw features changes in district assignments

The Elyria Catholic and Olmsted Falls girls basketball programs are no strangers to high seeds in the OHSAA tournament. And once again in 2021, the Morning Journal Coverage area’s top dogs are leaders in their districts.

On Jan. 31, the Bulldogs, Panthers and the rest of the area’s teams found out their postseason draw, with some seeing new faces in their districts.

Olmsted Falls normally plays in the Division I Elyria Catholic District alongside the rest of the Southwestern Conference and area teams like Elyria and Lorain. This year, the Bulldogs are the top seed in the D-I, Region 2, Northeast 5 district.

They still face potential matchups with Avon (ranked eighth), Avon Lake (ranked 14th), Lorain (ranked 24th) and North Olmsted (ranked 25th). But they also have to potentially contend with new faces like ninth-seeded Wadsworth in the district tournament.

Elyria Catholic faces the same challenge, normally the top team in the D-III North Ridgeville District, the Panthers now rank as the top team in the D-III Region 9, Northeast 4 district. Familiar faces like Warrensville Heights, Doylestown Chippewa, Oberlin (ranked 22nd) Brookside (ranked 19th) await.

But so do new challengers, like third-ranked Norwayne.

The story is the same for almost every area team, new faces with some familiar foes still in their districts. The remainder of the SWC is split up among the rest of the D-I bracket including the Region 1, Northeast 4 district containing fifth-ranked Westlake, 17th-ranked Midview and 22nd ranked Amherst.

In Division II, area district tournament representatives Firelands and Bay each sit in the same region (region 5) but are in different districts.

Which sets up the potential for a regional meeting between the two schools.

The area’s lone D-IV representative, Columbia, received the five seed in the Region 13, Northeast 3 district. The Raiders open their tournament season Feb. 20 at Cuyahoga Heights.

In the D-II, Region 6 Ashland District, upstart Vermilion earned a four seed and a first round meeting with Sandusky Bay Conference rival Norwalk.

MARK KEMPTON — FOR THE MORNING JOURNAL Avon junior guard Abby Liber (0) pulls the ball back to prevent a steal by Olmsted Falls senior Lauren Galaska (23) on Jan. 13at Avon.