MANSFIELD — For north central Ohio’s four biggest high schools, a new basketball landscape is taking shape with the addition of Dover to the Ohio Cardinal Conference.

The biggest news emerging from the OCC’s recent expansion is the introduction of pod scheduling during the winter months. The goal, OCC commissioner Ron Dessecker said, is to eliminate lengthy mid-week bus trips in the dead of winter.

According to Dessecker, the OCC’s western affiliates — Mansfield Senior, Madison, Lexington and Ashland — will be in one pod. The eastern pod will include Wooster, West Holmes, New Philadelphia and Dover.

“Teams will play mid-week games within their pod and then cross over for weekend games. We don’t want to have a Mansfield-area team driving to Dover or New Philadelphia on a Tuesday night in January,” Dessecker said.

“When we sat down with the athletic directors, they said they were all willing to be creative to work out scheduling so that is what we will do.”

Tuesday Night Lights?

The fanfare that comes with playing a traditional conference rival on a Friday or Saturday night will largely be a thing of the past for the area’s OCC schools.

“You’re going to see some of those mid-week contests that you would like to see played on a Friday or Saturday night,” Lexington boys basketball coach Scott Hamilton said. “What could happen is you will have teams playing for a conference championship on a Tuesday night in February.”

Scheduling is always going to be an issue for a conference spread across five counties. The OCC’s geographic footprint stretches from Lexington in the west to New Philadelphia in the east — a distance of roughly 70 miles — and the most direct route is not always the fastest.

“We’re talking about some long bus rides,” Madison girls basketball coach Mike Leeper said. “Most of my kids are on the honor roll and they take their studies seriously. If you get home at 10:30 on a weeknight and then have to do homework, it can be a challenge. 

“I think pod-scheduling is a great idea. It keeps our kids close to home during the week.”

Dollars and Sense

One possible side-effect of mid-week games is a loss of revenue for athletic departments. Aren’t fans more likely to attend weekend games when they don’t have to go to work the following morning?

Not necessarily, Dessecker said. 

“Mansfield Senior hosted Lexington on a Tuesday night earlier this year and it was packed. Two weeks later, Dover and New Philadelphia played on a Tuesday and it was packed,” Dessecker said. “The day of the week doesn’t mean a thing if there is a rivalry. 

“If we sponsored a marble tournament between Dover and New Philadelphia on Christmas Day, people would show up.”

Ticket sales aren’t dramatically different for mid-week games, Ashland AD Jason Goings said.

“I don’t see much difference in my Tuesday gates from my Friday gates if we’re talking conference games,” Goings said. “Those mid-week conference games are 20 minutes away. Fans are going to travel for that.”

Junior Achievement

Perhaps an even more vexing question for conference officials is what to do about middle school scheduling.

Junior high games are traditionally played during the week and none of the OCC’s athletic directors wants to send seventh- and eighth-grade teams on lengthy bus trips on school nights.

“The fact is the junior highs don’t necessarily have to play,” Madison athletic director Doug Rickert said. “When I was an athlete in the old Cardinal Conference, we didn’t play Dover or New Philadelphia or Coshocton until we got into high school.

“If ADs want to schedule locally, that is fine.”

Lesser of Two Evils

While scheduling will almost certainly cause some logistical headaches for athletic officials, operating as a seven-team league is a far worse fate.

Member schools in a seven-team conference have to find an additional football game in the fall and two more basketball games in the winter.

“People have no idea how hard it is to schedule in a seven-team league. To try to find a basketball game on your (conference) bye week is hard to do,” Rickert said. “And who knows who you are playing in football? You’re probably playing St.-somebody.”

Ashland’s Goings agreed.

“The only other options out there for football are parochial schools that don’t have a conference, like Akron Hoban or St. Ignatius or St. Ed’s. We can’t play those schools,” Goings said.

“Then you have to look at other sports. Basketball is a 22-game schedule and if you lose a school out of your conference, that is two more games you have to find.”

History of Flexibility

Throughout the OCC’s lifetime, athletic administrators and league officials have always been flexible in an effort to provide the best environment for athletes.  

From the time of the conference’s birth in 2003 until the 2015-16 season, the boys basketball schedule included a handful of double-weekends scattered throughout the season.

Coaches at the time objected to playing conference games on back-to-back nights, so mid-week games were introduced for the 2016-17 season.

“I’m old enough to remember when we used to play Friday-Saturday conference game,” Hamilton said. “The coaches didn’t like the idea of playing a conference game on a Friday night and turning around and doing it again on Saturday, so that is when we went to Tuesday night games.”

Dover officials are prepared to embrace the OCC’s spirit of flexibility.

“All of us are educators. We have to look at what is best for kids,” Dover AD Tim McCrate said.

“You’ve got to be creative and I’m confident that we can make it work at a much higher level than people think we are capable of.”