Cornerstone Christian has been in the Norton district the last two years, but I'm pretty sure they have usually been in another district (Orwell?) for most of the last 10 years. When they won the state title and were state runners up, they were not in the district with the other Cleveland teams. Richmond Heights has usually been in the Cleveland area district (Strongsville, Garfield Heights, Norton), but they have been sent to the eastern districts many times before as well. Teams like Oberlin, Columbia, and Hillsdale are geographical outliers who can swing decisions like this when they are D4. Oberlin has been D3 for awhile until this year. The Norton district this year is very similar to the old Strongsville D4 district many years ago. Kidron Central Christian, Dalton, Oberlin, and Open Door were normally the top teams in that district.They are basically stepping on the other schools and they will get what they deserve when attendance at games and just interest in general goes down because of decisions like this.
For every school that this hurts, it helps another school. Look at a team like Independence. They have only made the district tournament once in recent memory. They were easily good enough to challenge for district championships in most D4 districts statewide the last 4 years. I am sure their attendance, success, etc would have been much better if they were not in the Norton district all of those years. Sometimes you cannot avoid the great divide in competition. For instance, Berlin Hiland makes it to the state tournament almost every year. They are usually overwhelmed once they get there. I think they lost 62-20 last year or something like that. Not much the OHSAA can do about that because of their geographic location. Here, they can do something about it and they did it. Is it perfect? No. But it is better than it was before. Making a super district with three brackets is probably a better idea than this, but you would still end up with the best three teams in different brackets if you did that.
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