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COLUMBUS -- The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced preliminary division alignmnets for winter sports, including the new seven-division format for boys and girls basketball.
The division assignments for wrestling will be announced at a later date.
The new division assignments are preliminary based on enrollment and competitive balance, pending a referendum that the OHSAA board will vote on later this spring to allow teams to opt into moving up to Division I.
Locally, Big Red's boys and girls basketball teams will now compete in Division III in the new seven division format.
Steubenville had been in Division II under the previous format of four divisions.
Indian Creek will compete in Division IV in both boys and girls basketball next season. Under the old format, Creek had also been in Division II.
Now competing in Division V are Edison, Buckeye Local and Harrison Central, in both boys and girls basketball.
Edison and Harrison Central had competed in Division III under the old format. Buckeye Local had been in Division II in boys basketball and Division III in girls basketball.
Catholic Central and Toronto will now both compete in Division VII. The Crusaders and Red Knights had been in Division IV under the old format.
The divisions under the new format were formed with the largest 64 schools placed in Division I, the next 64 largest schools placed in Division II, and the remaining schools divided as equally as possible into the other divisions.
Boys wrestling is expected to be three divisions and the alignment is expected to be announced in June.
Girls wrestling wil remain as one division.
Bowling and swimming will remain with two divisions.