By BILL SNIER
CANTON — With less than a month until the Oct. 30 kickoff for tryouts, the Stark County High School Bowling Conference again has changes in its 19-team roster heading into the 2026-27 season.
Salem, a member of the SCHSBC the past two seasons, will be leaving a year early before joining the Northeast 8 Conference for the 2027-28 school year. Football is not involved in the change. Other conference schools include Girard, Hubbard, Lakeview, Niles McKinley, Poland, South Range and Struthers.
Taking the Quakers’ place will be Coventry, the 2024 Division I state runner-up, which is out of the Metro Athletic Conference and into the Principals Athletic Conference. The PAC currently has just two bowling teams — Canton South and Triway, which are both already in the SCHSBC.
It did force a division realignment due to travel and geography, according to SCHSBC commissioner J.C. Heighway.
“Salem came to us and said they were joining another conference next year so they decided to go ahead and depart this season to lay the groundwork for next year,” said Heighway, a North Canton resident who is entering his 13th season in the commissioner’s role and 26 seasons as a player, coach and administrator.
“We had heard through the grapevine that Coventry was leaving its conference, so we reached out to the athletic director with the benefits of joining us. He was interested then and, a few months later, they decided to become part of it.”
Louisville also has joined the All-American Conference, but according to coaches this is not affecting their Stark conference bowling membership. East Canton, a former Stark conference member, also has left the Inter-Valley Conference.
“There are a lot of uncertainties at this point, We know that East Canton is changing again and we’ve had discussions with them at the end of last season because of what happened in the IVC,” Heighway said. “Our goal is to add two more teams to even off all three divisions at seven teams. But we are not actively in any discussions at this point with anyone.”
The divisions for boys and girls in the SCHSBC going into the 2026-27 season are:
- American Division: Alliance (no home center for matches); Carrollton (Atwood Lanes); Louisville (Eastbury); Marlington (no home center); Minerva (Minerva Bowl); United Local (Forrest Lanes);
- National Division: Canton Central Catholic (AMF Hall of Fame); Canton South (AMF Hall of Fame); Coventry (Apollo 3); Lake Center Christian (Park Centre); Massillon (AMF Hall of Fame); Triway (Ballerz Sports Club); and
- Federal Division: GlenOak (Eastbury), Green (Apollo 3), Jackson (Park Centre): Lake (Park Centre); Canton McKinley (Strike Zone); North Canton Hoover (Park Centre); Perry (AMF Hall of Fame).
CONCERN FOR NUMBERS
The conference held its annual preseason coaches meeting Sunday at Eastbury Bowling Center, with several coaches expressing concern about a potential drop-off in athlete numbers.
“I think there is more of an inexperienced concern,” Heighway said. “When I was coaching at Hoover, one year we lost 10 seniors and has just five players on the JV team, but we had 18 boys come out the following year.
“You just never know until you get to the tryouts. There might be kids we don’t even know about yet who had not come out before, are leaving other sports or just want to add a sport. I’ve told the coaches not to totally freak out until tryouts and we see what the numbers actually are. If they don’t show up, then you have to get the schools and athletic directors involved to see what can be done.”
Canton Central Catholic last season moved two girls to the boys team in order to field a full varsity boys squad.
“Right now, we are seeing a lull in kids overall. We also saw that back in 2008 where there just weren’t the physical numbers. You just can’t tell at this point,” Heighway said.
The conference is hoping to hold a “Bowling with Santa” event in December to help get more students and families involved.
“We have to get them while they are young if we want this to continue and grow,” Heighway said. “It’s one way to introduce them to the sport in a fun atmosphere.”
ELECTRONIC PUSH
The conference also is making a push to include new electronic, computerized score sheets for the coaches to use when filing their match reports. Coaches were given instruction on using the new sheets during Sunday’s meeting.
“We wanted to give it to them a month ahead so they could practice using them. We think it will be easier on everyone once they learn to use it,” said Heighway, adding the new sheets will do the addition for coaches and is color coded on what to fill out before submission via email to the conference.
“Hopefully, it will streamline everything. We’ve had too many problems in the past with spellings and addition errors. It’s just a cleaner way of doing it. Also, it will help us in the long run and take up less space on the website fore the future. We expect some pushback, but we think once they get used to it, they will see the benefits.”
NOTEBOOK: Heighway said the conference is accepting teams for its annual Alumni Tournament, set for 9 a.m. Oct. 24 at Eastbury Bowling Center. The format is 12 Baker System games before the field is cut for match-play rounds. Entry fee is $200 per team. If a team has just three players from the same school, there will be a $25 additional charge. Entry forms are available at: https://www.facebook.com/events/28357128830642998?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22surface%22%3A%22search%22%7D%2C%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D. … Sectional and district tournament dates are set approximate to the same as last season, with the same sites — Spins Bowl-Kent, Spins Bowl-Akron and Eastbury Bowling Center — being the sectional sites with district events for the Northeast Districts set for Feb. 19 through 22 for Division II and Division I at Roseland Lanes in Oakwood.
DATES TO REMEMBER
Here are some dates of area interest for high school teams:
Oct. 30: First official day of tryouts and coaching for OHSAA teams
Nov. 14: SCHSBC Early Bird tournament, 9 a.m., Eastbury Bowling Center, Canton
Nov. 16: SCHSBC season begins
Nov. 21: Ravenna Varsity Girls, 10 a.m., Spins Bow-Kent, Kent
Nov. 29: Ravenna Varsity Boys, 10 a.m., Spins Bowl-Kent, Kent
Dec. 5: Muskingum Invitational, noon, AMF Hall of Fame, Canton
Dec. 12: Stepladder Challenge, 9:30 a.m., Clutch Lanes, Cuyahoga Falls
Dec. 26-27: Christmas Invitational, 9 a.m., Spins Bowl Akron, Akron
Dec. 31: Annie Case Holiday Tournament, 9 a.m., Park Centre Lanes, North Canton
Jan. 29: Martin Luther King Invitational, 9 a.m., Jan. 19, Spins Bowl-Akron, Akron
See other high school tournaments here: https://www.ohsb.org/tournaments.html
Here is the 2026-27 SCHSBC schedule, with dates subject to change due to conflicts, etc.: