Ottawa Hills High School, one of five founding members of the Toledo Area Athletic Conference in 1988, has announced to its fellow conference members that the Green Bears will exit the TAAC with the intention of joining the Sandusky Bay Conference.

That decision was first shared by Ottawa Hills athletic director Ryan Wronkowicz via email to his fellow TAAC athletic directors Monday morning. 

The move was officially announced later Monday by the school in a news release from Adam Fineske, Ottawa Hills’ superintendent.

“Pending school board approval on Wednesday, March 26, Ottawa Hills Local Schools will move its athletic affiliation to the Sandusky Bay Conference [SBC] effective July 1, 2026,” the statement read. “...The Green Bears will continue to compete in the TAAC for the 2025-2026 school year before making the move to the SBC for the 2026-2027 campaign.”

In the release, Wronkowicz elaborated on Ottawa Hills’ athletic future.

“The move to the SBC is an exciting one for Green Bear Nation,” Wronkowicz stated. “We will reunite with some previous rivals that were opponents of ours in the TAAC. The SBC is a highly competitive conference that will challenge us moving forward in a variety of sports. The schools are all similar in size to us, which provides us this unique opportunity to join forces.”

In the SBC, which is currently undergoing a major shake-up in its overall membership, Ottawa Hills will most likely join current TAAC member Northwood, which joins the SBC’s River Division in 2025-26, and seven current River Division members — Danbury, Fremont St. Joseph, Gibsonburg, Lakota, Castalia Margaretta, Sandusky St. Mary, and Woodmore.

Danbury, St. Joseph, and St. Mary do not compete in the SBC in football but do have eight-man football programs that play in the Northern 8 Football Conference.

“While we look ahead to creating some new rivalries in the new league, we will look to finish our tenure in the TAAC strong next year,” Wronkowicz added in the release. “We are thankful to have been a founding member of the league and have enjoyed the competition over the years. We will battle hard in our final year in the conference with the goal of adding more championships to our trophy case before we make the move.”

Since forming in 1988 with Ottawa Hills, Emmanuel Christian, Maumee Valley, Toledo Christian and Danbury high schools, the TAAC had expanded to as many as eight full-time members briefly (2014-16), and has installed three football-only members from the Buckeye Border Conference (Edon and Hilltop since 2005; Montpelier since 2016).

But the TAAC football alignment has been on tenuous ground in recent years.

Gibsonburg (in TAAC 2011-18) and Tiffin Calvert (2014-16) left the TAAC and are currently SBC River Division members. Northwood, a TAAC member since 2000, will join the River Division in 2025-26.

Cardinal Stritch, a TAAC member since 1995, has struggled to field a football team in recent years, missing the 2022 and 2024 seasons, and announced it would attempt to form an eight-man football team next fall.

Toledo Christian, which dropped 11-man football after the 2018 season to form an eight-man program (2019-2024), announced it is resuming its 11-man program next fall and will rejoin the TAAC for football in 2026.

Original member Danbury left the TAAC in 2018 and is an SBC River Division member. The Lakers joined Toledo Christian in establishing an eight-man football program in 2019, but they compete in their other sports in the SBC.

Emmanuel Christian has never had a football program, and Maumee Valley discontinued football many years before the TAAC was formed.

The combination of the departures and the low football numbers left the TAAC with just five 11-man football teams (Northwood, Ottawa Hills, Edon, Hilltop, and Montpelier) last fall.

The conference got a bit of a football reprieve when it was announced last year that a fourth BBC member, North Central, would join the TAAC for football along with three schools from the Michigan-based Tri-County Conference — Erie Mason, Whiteford, and Summerfield. Those four will begin TAAC play in 2025.

With Northwood's move to the SBC being offset by these football-only additions, the TAAC football alignment for 2025 will include eight teams, with Ottawa Hills being the only actual full-time TAAC member.

In 2026, TC intends to replace Ottawa Hills as the TAAC's eighth football member.

The pending 2026-27 move to the SBC by Ottawa Hills is the latest in what has been developing into a major shake-up in that multi-division, 22-member conference in recent weeks.

Last month, 10 of the schools that compose the SBC's Lake and Bay divisions for football announced that, pending approval from their respective boards, they were planning to leave the SBC to form a new conference.

That group included current Lake Division football members Clyde, Norwalk, Sandusky, Sandusky Perkins, and Tiffin Columbian, as well as Bay Division football members Bellevue, Huron, Milan Edison, Port Clinton, and Vermilion high schools.

It is also possible that this group of 10, which might ultimately retain the Sandusky Bay Conference name, might seek to add two or more schools to create a two-tiered alignment.

Earlier this month, SBC members Willard and New Riegel announced they will exit the conference after the 2025-26 school year and accepted an invitation to join the Northern 10 Athletic Conference in 2026-27.

Willard's Crimson Flashes compete in the SBC's small-school River Division in football and in the mid-range Bay Division in other sports. New Riegel, which does not have football, is an SBC River Division member.

The same invitation that was extended by the N10 also went to SBC River Division members Hopewell-Loudon, Tiffin Calvert, and Old Fort, as well as to Lucas High School of the Mid Buckeye Conference. Lucas has accepted, and the other three SBC schools are expected to follow suit. Old Fort also does not have football.

The eight current members of the expanding N10 are Attica Seneca East, Bucyrus, Bucyrus Wynford, Carey, New Washington Buckeye Central, North Robinson Colonel Crawford, Sycamore Mohawk, and Upper Sandusky high schools.

As for the TAAC, the Ottawa Hills departure, following that of Northwood, would leave the shrinking conference with just four full-time members — Cardinal Stritch, Emmanuel Christian, Maumee Valley, and Toledo Christian.

Further, Maumee Valley does not currently have baseball or softball programs, and Emmanuel does not currently have girls varsity basketball. Thus, seeking a new league to join, or competing as independents, seems inevitable for the four private schools.

First Published March 24, 2025, 6:12 p.m.