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Schools to take another crack at large league

Area high school sports may be getting another shakeup thanks to a proposed merger of the All-American Athletic Conference and the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference.

This week the seven AAC schools in the Blue Tier including Crestview, Brookfield, Campbell, Champion, LaBrae, Newton Falls and Liberty notified the league on April 17 of their intention to leave the league at the end of the 2019-20 school year to join the MVAC.

The Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference consists of Springfield, Lowellville, Sebring, Western Reserve, McDonald, Mineral Ridge, Waterloo and Jackson-Milton.

After the formation of the Northeast 8 Conference which took away most of the mid-level AAC teams, there was little incentive to stick around for the Blue Tier teams.

Crestview athletic director and football coach Paul Cusick said there are a lot of details to work out yet.

“The plan is in its infancy,” Cusick said.

He said as far as Crestview is concerned that they are the new kids on the block in the AAC and are happy just to be involved with a league.

Among the things to work out will be whether to keep the leagues as they are now and just work under the MVAC umbrella with two tiers or rearrange the two leagues for competitive or enrollment reasons.

With the MVAC likely now consisting of 15 schools, the league will also be in a better position to attract a new member to round out the league with 16 schools.

“They’re just starting to get their feelers out,” Cusick said. “This is all new.”

Cusick said he is not aware of any plan to extend the MVAC beyond 16 teams and that the 2020-2021 school would likely serve as a buffer year to get things ironed out before the new league takes a more permanent shape.

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