Delphos St. John’s Cam Elwer averaged 27.5 points per game as a sophomore, and returns to with the Blue Jays to play Minster on Friday. (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Our coverage of area basketball opens on Friday night with two of the best small-school matchups you can find on December 13. The question is…with now seven divisions of basketball, what lies beyond December 13th?
Press Pros coverage of area high school basketball begins tomorrow night with a pair of the best boys Division VII matchups imaginable at this point of the schedule.
At Minster, a highly anticipated meeting between the Wildcats and Adam Elwer’s Delphos St. John Blue Jays (3-0).
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And at Russia (pronounced Roo-shee for out-of-the-area readers), the Raiders entertain another presumed power in the Shelby County League this year, Jackson Center.
What makes these two games interesting – compelling – is the matchups.
The St. John-Minster game will pit two of the more athletic, and basketball-gifted teams in the Midwest Athletic Conference in 2024-’25. Show up to watch this game and you’re going to see what many call the best Division VII scorer in Ohio in the Blue Jays’ junior, Cam Elwer (27.5 ppg last year, and son of head coach Adam Elwer), who scores with the audacity of a cat burglar. He can shoot it from anywhere.
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Minster (1-0) will counter with a lineup that’s still transitioning from their deep run in football, headed by senior guard Brogan Stephey (who may or may not play, given the transition). But 6’8″ post player Cole Albers absolutely will play, and comes off a 19-point performance in last week’s 30-point opening win over Wapakoneta.
At Russia coach Spencer Cordonnier’s Raiders (3-0) will trot out their younger, but athletic, lineup for 2024-’25, led by the remnants of last year’s Division IV state semi-final team and 6’3″ senior wing, Braylen Cordonnier. Jackson Center, under second-year coach Aaron Klopfenstein, will counter with a veteran group that finished fourth in the SCL League last year, and excites local fans with size (6’6″ Reed Platfoot) and the outside shooting threats of Preston Serr and Lucas Hartle. Jackson (1-0) opened last week with a blow-out win over Upper Scioto Valley, while Russia has impressive dominating wins over St. Henry, Fairlawn, and Botkins.
It’s a great way to start, but it comes with a different anticipation for Ohio basketball in 2024-’25. Always a competitive game of check, and checkmate, with small-school basketball when there were four divisions, what remains to be seen with the OHSAA’s expansion to seven divisions…is whether there’s enough athletes, collectively, to make what’s now divisions IV, V, VI, and VII as good as its been in the past?
Senior Braylon Cordonnier returns to head a younger, but talented, Russia Raider lineup in the Shelby County League.
Already we’re anticipating the impact on the girls game, with loaded-up defending champ Fort Loramie expected to run roughshod over the rest of area Division VII, now that past area tournament threat Tri-Village has been moved up to Division V, and Minster has been bumped to Division VI.
4-0 after their first two weeks, people are questioning whether Loramie will even be threatened beyond their January matchup with Ottawa-Glandorf, who, like Loramie, is undefeated at this point with an average winning margin of 30 points.
The issue, of course, is the question of the OHSAA having added expanded tournament title opportunity under the headline of competitive balance for schools who’ve never as much as sniffed the Final Four in the past. Noble, but while it questionably benefits more kids, does it benefit the competitive future of high school basketball?
It’s true that it does benefit a boys team like Russia, who was knocked out of the Division IV state Final Four the past two years by Cleveland Richmond Heights, whose roster resembled that of the Boston Celtics and now plays in Division V. But are there enough athletes spread across three divisions of rural Ohio basketball to actually create challenge for the ‘best’ teams in those divisions?
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The answer would be yes in an athlete-rich conference like the MAC, but coaches we’ve asked in the southeast and northwest Ohio have responded by saying they would have been happy to have seen it left alone. The overwhelming consensus: opportunity increases while basketball, itself, gets watered down.
“It’s a great experiment,” a coach spoke out last week. But you can’t tell me that kids are going to shoot more in the off-season, and work harder to improve, just because there’s seven divisions instead of four. There’s just not enough good athletes for seven divisions of basketball.”
Time will tell, of course, while some look at the results of the recent volleyball Finals and make the point that four of the seven division finals were won in straight sets.
“I can’t see how it’s going to be any different in basketball,” that coach added. “There’ll be some good teams…and then everyone else.”
The great experiment, indeed!
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