With online forums abuzz with rumors, athletic director Barb Salata confirmed Wednesday night that Elyria Catholic is one of the schools that has submitted a letter of interest about joining the West Shore Conference.
“It’s all kind of in the preliminary process right now,” she said. “(The WSC) is looking to see what we have and we want to see what they have to offer. So we filed a letter of interest late last week.”
Avon athletic director Erich Frombach wouldn’t confirm which schools had applied for the league’s two open spots.
“The ADs, the principals and the superintendents are meeting next week,” Frombach said. “It’s during that meeting that we’re going to evaluate the applicants and decide which schools would fit best into the West Shore Conference.”
The spots are available after Firelands and Fairview informed the WSC of their intentions to leave the league and join the Patriot Athletic Conference. The WSC put out an advertisement in April in hopes of expanding the league and keeping the Falcons and Warriors, but no schools applied at that time.
“We needed to cover all our bases,” Salata said when asked why the Panthers didn’t submit an application in April. “I felt I needed to talk to people in the area, and I wanted to talk to each and every head coach … and that’s a process in and of itself. Overwhelmingly to a person, the response regarding the WSC was positive, as was the thought of sending out a letter of interest.”
Salata said the letter stated Elyria Catholic’s interest in the league, listed the sports the Panthers competed in and included the number of students at the school. She said she hadn’t heard back from the WSC as of Wednesday night.
“Travel is one thing that is a factor, but it’s not the most important thing,” Salata said of EC’s possibly leaving the North Coast League for the WSC. “We believe the schools in the WSC are very competitive, and that we would draw more spectators to our sports events both home and away.
“There are also many schools in the WSC that have some of the sports that schools in the NCL don’t have, like swimming or hockey. So there’s several reasons we think this could be a good fit for Elyria Catholic.”
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.

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