Northern Ohio Conference plays its first season, with Sandusky and Perkins among the ten charter schools

This school year is the first for the Northern Ohio Conference, a ten-school league that includes several Firelands-area programs.

The conference was announced in May 2025. All ten charter members came from the Lake and Bay divisions of the Sandusky Bay Conference.

The members

Lake Division: Clyde, Norwalk, Perkins, Sandusky and Tiffin Columbian

Bay Division: Bellevue, Edison, Huron, Port Clinton and Vermilion

That puts Sandusky, Perkins, Huron, Vermilion, Port Clinton and Norwalk in one league.

Why they left

The split followed frustration with how the Sandusky Bay Conference made decisions. Reports on the breakup describe a voting bloc of the River division schools, 13 votes to 10, that could block changes the larger schools wanted. The new conference supports 21 varsity sports and keeps divisions for most of them, though some, such as soccer and swimming, will be run without divisions.

The conference’s Wikipedia entry has the full list of members and sports.