Playoff games back to Saturdays

Saturday night football is back.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced on June 6 that high school playoff games this coming fall will be held on both Friday and Saturday nights. Last fall, playoff games — aside from the championship week — were all on Friday nights.

Come this November, playoff games in Division I, II, III and VI will be on Fridays, while Division IV, V and VII will be on Saturdays.

All games will start at 7 p.m.

“We still have good attendance throughout the playoffs, but the overall total attendance dropped in 2017 when we moved all the games to Fridays,” said Beau Rugg, OHSAA director of officiating and sport management and the OHSAA’s football administrator. “Some parts of the state liked staying away from Saturdays for playoff games, but we also received quite a bit of feedback, mainly from the smaller schools, that they hoped we would return to having games on Saturdays, too, so their communities could see two games per weekend instead of one.”

This year’s state championship games will again be at Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton. They will be Nov. 29Dec. 2.

In other news from the OHSAA’s director’s meeting on June 6, regional assignments for this fall’s football season were announced.

• Both Euclid and Mentor remain in Division I, Region 1

• In Division II, Benedictine, Brush, Madison, Mayfield, North, Riverside and South all remain in Region 5.

Lake Catholic drops from Division II, Region 5 to Division III, Region 9.

• In Division III, Chardon, Geneva, Harvey, Kenston and NDCL all remain in Region 9, along with the aforementioned Lake Catholic Cougars who drop down from Division II.

• In Division IV, Perry and West Geauga are in Region 13, while Chagrin Falls is in Region 14 - the same as they were last year.

• In Division V, Beachwood, Berkshire, Gilmour, VASJ and Wickliffe remain in Region 17, but are now joined by Hawken, which dropped from Division IV, Region 13 where they were last season.

• In Division VI, Region 21 are Cardinal and Kirtland, the same as last year.

• In Division VII, Region 25 are Fairport, Newbury and Richmond Heights, unchanged from last year.