CVC to expand by six

League will add three Ashtabula schools, plus others in 2019-20

The Chagrin Valley Conference is expanding by six, league officials confirmed to The News-Herald during an exclusive conference call April 20.

League principals on Wednesday officially voted Brooklyn, Ashtabula Edgewood, Ashtabula Lakeside, Grand Valley, Trinity and Lutheran West for inclusion in the league starting with the 2019-20 school year.

The six additions push the CVC’s membership to 22 teams.

“We are extremely thrilled and excited to welcome all of these schools, their communities, their administrations, their coaches and their families to our league,” said CVC secretary/treasurer Ryan Peters, who is also the athletic director at Beachwood. “We treat our league like a family. We genuinely care for everyone in it. We love our kids and will go to the greatest extent to ensure they have the most positive experience possible.”

The new-look CVC will encompass schools from four different counties — Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Cuyahoga — and be geared toward a competitive balance among the members, with schedule flexibility and high regard to limiting travel during weekday games.

The additions to the CVC will allow the league to divide into three divisions for football and four divisions for boys basketball.

In football, the three divisions will be:

• Chagrin Division: Lakeside, Chagrin Falls, Perry, Geneva, Harvey, West Geauga, Orange and Edgewood.

• Metro Division: Cuyahoga Heights, Independence, Fairport, Richmond Heights, Trinity, Brooklyn and Lutheran West.

• Valley Division: Beachwood, Berkshire, Wickliffe, Grand Valley, Kirtland, Cardinal and Hawken.

While the eight-school Chagrin Division will have no crossover games, the smaller Metro and Valley Divisions — with seven teams each — will have one crossover game per year.

In boys basketball, the four divisions will be:

• Lake Division: Perry, Lakeside, Geneva, Harvey and Edgewood.

• Chagrin Division: Chagrin Falls, Beachwood, West Geauga, Orange and Hawken.

• Metro Division: Cuyahoga Heights, Independence, Brooklyn, Lutheran West, Trinity and Richmond Heights.

• Valley Division: Berkshire, Cardinal, Kirtland, Grand Valley, Fairport and Wickliffe.

Other sports divisions and schedules will be released at a later date.

“We went sport by sport the other day and asked, ‘Does this work for you?’ ” Lewis said. “To a person, they said yes.”

The expansion effort had been ongoing for nine months, Lewis said. The league opened applications in December 2017, with a deadline of Jan. 30, 2018.

In all, 14 schools applied to the league. Lewis said “due diligence” was done on each of the applicants before the league decided on the six invitations.

“When we went through this, it was a collaborative effort by everybody,” Peters said. “Brian Hiscox of Berkshire was one of them. He put something on the board and it was like, ‘Whoa! This works.’ Todd Porcello and T.J. Rockwell of Perry were very instrumental, too. As a league, everyone came together collaboratively on this.”

A high level of attention was given toward constructing divisions that

would fit the needs of all members as best as possible from a competitive balance point of view.

Travel distance was also a major point of emphasis to limit time on the road as much as possible on weekdays.

“We are going to be extremely strategic in terms of games, the longest trips being on Friday or Saturday,” Lewis said. “There will be a few (trips) here and there, but it is really important to us to strategically put together a schedule where travel is minimal.”

This is the first movement, enrollment-wise, in the CVC since Newbury departed after the 2013-14 school year and both Kenston and Aurora departed after the 2014-15 year.

Lakeside and Edgewood come to the CVC from the All-American Conference, a conference predominantly made up of Trumbull and Mahoning county schools. Grand Valley will be leaving the Northeast Athletic Conference to join the CVC, while Brooklyn (Patriot Athletic Conference), Trinity (North Coast League) and Lutheran West (Patriot Athletic Conference) also will be relocating to the CVC.

The news of expansion

was greeted with open arms by current members of the league.

“The addition of these six school districts to the Chagrin Valley Conference has secured a much stronger future for our schools and more importantly our student-athletes by allowing for much greater competitive and geographic balance,” Berkshire Principal Michael King said.

Over the next few months, the current CVC schools will be working with the new members in finalizing bylaws and divisional alignments in all sports and on the junior high level.

Lewis said the vision is for the CVC to be more than an athletic conference — one that fits the wants and needs of its members on an educational level, too. Planning has already begun for a student leadership conference and staff collaboration.

“This conference is like real life. We have such diverse backgrounds,” Lewis said. “We’re going to take this league to a new level off the field, too, make it a full-service league — not just athletics. There will also be academic and social working aspects to our league. The balance in our league will be incredible.”