A new Eastern Buckeye Conference football-only league take shape

ALLIANCE — It’s the dawn of a new day for what is currently called the Eastern Buckeye Conference.

The conference has announced that Canton Central Catholic and Columbiana Crestview will join current EBC members Alliance, West Branch, Salem and Warren Howland to form a new football-only league starting with the 2028 season.

All six schools recently signed long-term four-year commitments to the new league. The league becomes official pending approval by school boards of the respective member schools. The name of the league, whether it remains the EBC, or a new name is chosen, is to be announced.

“What’s nice is they (Canton Central Catholic and Crestview) come from two different areas, so we kind of broaden (the league footprint) a little bit,” said West Branch athletic director Ryan Wolf. “Salem (paired) with Crestview and Alliance with another Stark County team (in Central), helps. For us, we’re in the middle (of the league geographically), but what’s interesting is we’ve played Crestview in the past and we used to scrimmaged Canton Central Catholic when I played (at West Branch with coach Jim) Laut, and it was always the first scrimmage. Having that tradition (with Central) is a nice thing, and Crestview — everything they do is good.”

The new league development comes only months after original EBC conference members Carrollton, Minerva and Marlington announced their departure for the new Northeast Senate League when their two-year EBC exit commitments end following the 2027 season.

Then, last spring, Salem accepted an invitation to join the Youngstown-based Northeast 8 Athletic Conference in all sports but football, starting with the 2027 scholastic season. The Quakers will be in this new football-only league.

The announcement that Minerva, Carrollton and Marlington were departing initially left the EBC scrambling to keep the league afloat in football. But through the efforts of several athletic directors of current EBC members who re-structured a new league in a short time, the new conference, whether it remains the EBC or has a new title, will remain part of the area football fabric.

“I would say it (making the new league happen) was kind of between (Alliance AD and football coach (Tim) Goodman, myself and (Salem AD) Matt Freeman,” said Wolf. “It’s been kind of a team effort with Jim Carmichael, the commissioner. He’s been involved. It was a team effort, it wasn’t one person.”

With the addition of Stark County-based Canton Central Catholic and Columbiana County-based Crestview, the league’s football footprint remains in four counties, including Stark, Mahoning, Columbiana and Portage County. It also strengthens its presence in the Canton and Youngstown media markets.

The new league includes three schools who have won state football titles in their past — Central Catholic (1988, 2000, 2016), West Branch (1994) and Alliance (big-school state poll title in 1958).

“We’re real happy that we were able to keep a lot of us together and to keep it local,” said Wolf. “I think that was big for us that we were able to keep some rivalries. Football is definitely the hardest one to schedule of every sport. So, to be able to say, hey, we’ve got five (league) games that are for sure at the end of the season was kind of a relief in that aspect.”

Moving forward, the league’s six members will consider applications from additional schools that have shown a possible interest in joining the conference in the future.

“Our play was this: Let’s get our six (initial members) settled and then let’s look at what it would take to expand (in the future),” stated Wolf. “It was OK, we’ve got six and we’ll see how this looks and then from there we can start looking at what we would do if we wanted to add (schools).”

One thing Wolf stated in closing is that West Branch and Alliance will be a new Week 10 league game starting in 2028. Currently, Alliance plays Marlington and West Branch plays Salem in Week 10, but that will change starting in 2028.”Alliance will be Week 10 (for West Branch),” said Wolf. “We haven’t really worked through all of that (future scheduling). “Preliminary, we have (Salem) (Week 9).”

The Canton Repository sports department can be contacted via email at sports@cantonrep.com.

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