St. Charles’ boys soccer team learned Oct. 8 that it might not play in the Division I postseason after all, two days after a judgment granted in Franklin County said the Cardinals could do just that.
The Ohio High School Athletic Association not only is filing an emergency appeal in the 10th District Court of Appeals in Columbus to overturn the judgment, it is delaying the division I and II tournament draws statewide until a final decision is made.
The OHSAA notified affected schools in a memorandum Oct. 8, which director of media relations Tim Stried shared with The Dispatch later in the day.
A hearing could take place as soon as Oct. 13 or 14, Stried said. The tournament draw was originally scheduled for Oct. 11 and will still be held that day
for divisions III, IV and V as well as all five girls divisions.
“Our administrating [of] tournaments has so many procedures and timelines and deadlines … and essentially if we lose in court on this issue, what is to stop schools from challenging our deadlines from other procedures in a number of levels?” Stried told The Dispatch.
Originally assigned to compete in Division II, an administrative oversight in failing to submit the proper paperwork to the OHSAA resulted in the Cardinals not being moved up to Division I, the classification in which they have competed since 1992.
St. Charles acknowledged during the summer that it missed the deadline to submit an opt-up form to the OHSAA, but miscommunication in the athletic department resulted in that form never being filed.
When final divisional assignments were released in June, St. Charles was surprised to find itself in Division II. The school filed an injunction Sept. 11 to be allowed to move up to Division I.
A message seeking comment from The Dispatch to Columbus attorney Luke Fedlam, who is representing St. Charles, was not immediately returned.
According to the OHSAA, if St. Charles moves to Division I, the Central District tournament in Division II would go from having five district champions to four, and the Northeast District would gain an eighth champion.
Division I has six district champions locally.
Fedlam previously shared the Oct. 6 decision from Judge Jeffrey M. Brown in Franklin County Common Pleas Court that allowed St. Charles to move to Division I.
Brown’s seven-page decision favored St. Charles for, among other reasons, irreparable harm in that this tournament is the only chance the Cardinals would have to play in the big-school division, no harm to third parties based on none of the other 25 teams in the Division I field being displaced, and his statement that, “The Court focuses its analysis on ensuring the overriding principal that blameless student-athletes should not be punished for the errors of the adults.”
Whatever the result of the appeal, the timeline is tight.
Division I and II postseason play begins the week of Oct. 18. Locally, that consists of district semifinals Oct. 21, with finals following seven days later.
“It is definitely an extreme situation,” Stried said. “But we decided we need to fight this, and the only way to do that at this point in time is to delay the draws.”
St. Charles is 13-2-1 this fall with one regular-season game remaining, Oct. 15 at Worthington Kilbourne. The Cardinals are the state’s third-ranked team regardless of division, according to MaxPreps, behind only Cleveland St. Ignatius and defending Division I state champion Dublin Jerome.
The Cardinals were Division I state runners-up in 2024 and state semifinalists last year.
High school sports reporter Dave Purpura can be reached at dpurpura@dispatch.com and at @dp_dispatch on X.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: OHSAA asking appeals court to keep St. Charles soccer in Division II
