Ohio
Five Ohio Catholic schools form football scheduling alliance, end plans for new conference
Five Catholic high schools from central and northeast Ohio will partner on football scheduling rather than move forward with a plan to create a new conference, DeSales assistant principal Jim Jones told The Dispatch on Monday.
The scheduling alliance between DeSales, Hartley, Watterson, Cuyahoga Falls Walsh Jesuit and Youngstown Ursuline will begin in 2026, which was the original plan for the Ohio Catholic Athletic Conference.
The OCAC was announced last July between those five schools, Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary, Cleveland Villa Angela-St. Joseph and Youngstown Mooney. The goal was to alleviate scheduling issues and strengthen competition among several of the state’s strongest Catholic programs.
Mooney, St. Vincent-St. Mary and VASJ later backed out because of cost and travel concerns.
In February, Jones told The Dispatch the OCAC was forging ahead, but the remaining schools would have to make sure the new league would be “sustainable.” The original OCAC plans called for a football-only conference with potential expansion into other sports at a later date.
“At this point, we want to get things off to a great start with the alliance and see what takes shape from there,” Jones said Monday. “It’s something that we want to keep building and hopefully things will happen, and maybe even more teams will want to get involved, but right now we just have to work with what we have.”
DeSales, Hartley, Watterson and St. Charles will continue to play a CCL schedule, according to Jones, who has been the CCL commissioner since 2017. St. Charles was not involved with the OCAC.
With only three league contests, CCL teams are used to playing out-of-town teams and traveling to games.
“(The OCAC) just unraveled,” said Watterson coach Brian Kennedy, whose team won the Division III state title last fall. “We’ll play Ursuline and Walsh forever. We need games. For nothing other than scheduling, this was going to be nice. We already travel. Getting on a bus and driving for two or three hours to play a game doesn’t bother me. It’s trying to find games when everybody else is in league play.”
This isn’t the first time CCL members have partnered with out-of-area programs. They formed an alliance with the southwest Ohio-based Greater Catholic League in 2019 to alleviate issues with scheduling, but that lasted for one season.
“I’m slightly disappointed, but I’m not surprised,” Watterson athletic director Doug Etgen said. “I don’t mean that in a negative way towards any of the schools who backed out. We’ve been down this road before, so I’m very skeptical when these things start formulating. … I’m disappointed because I was looking forward to some other opportunities in some other sports to do some neat things to tie our teams together.”
High school sports reporter Frank DiRenna can be reached at fdirenna@dispatch.com and at @DispatchFrank on X.
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POMEROY, Ohio (WCHS) — A fire destroyed one home and damaged two others Wednesday evening, but then rekindled early Thursday morning and destroyed another home, police said.
The fire was first reported just after 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday night in the 300 block of Wetzgall Street in Pomeroy, according to a press release from the Pomeroy Police Department.
According to police, the fire spread to the two homes on either side of the original home on fire. Firefighters contained the fire and saved the two surrounding homes, but the home that first caught fire was deemed a total loss.
Then, just after 3 a.m. on Thursday morning, the fire rekindled and spread to one of the other homes, resulting in a total loss of that home as well, police said.
Pomeroy police said both homes were occupied at the time of the fires, but all occupants of each home were able to exit their homes safely. Police also said that there were no reported injuries, though both families lost everything they owned due to the total losses of the homes.
The cause of the fire has not been determined, and the incident is still under active investigation by the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office, according to police.
What we know about student loans and the Education Department
Will Education Department restructuring affect your student loans? Here’s what we know know.
Student loan borrowers under the Biden-era student loan repayment plan, Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE), may soon have to select a new repayment plan after the U.S. Department of Education agreed to a measure to permanently end the program.
A proposed joint settlement agreement announced Tuesday between the DOE and the State of Missouri seeks to end what officials call the “illegal” SAVE program, impacting more than seven million SAVE borrowers who would have to enroll in another program. The settlement must be approved by the court before it can be implemented.
Ohio borrowers carry some of the nation’s highest student loan debt. Here’s how the proposed change could affect them.
What is the SAVE plan?
Originally known as REPAYE, the Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan was created to deliver the lowest monthly payments among income-driven repayment programs. Under the Biden administration, it became the most affordable option for borrowers.
According to USA TODAY, the SAVE plan was part of Biden’s push to deliver nearly $200 billion in student loan relief to more than 5 million Americans. It wiped out $5.5 billion in debt for nearly half a million borrowers and cut many monthly payments down to $0.
But officials in President Donald Trump’s administration claim the Biden plan was illegal.
Why does the Department of Education want to end the SAVE plan?
The DOE says the SAVE plan aimed to provide mass forgiveness without congressional approval, costing taxpayers $342 billion over 10 years. In a press release, the Department said the administration promised unrealistically low payments and quick forgiveness without legal authority.
“The Trump administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a release. “Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies.”
If the agreement is approved by the court, no new borrowers will be able to enroll in the SAVE plan. The agency says it will deny any pending applications and move all SAVE borrowers back into other repayment plans.
Borrowers currently enrolled in the SAVE Plan would have a limited time to select a new repayment plan and begin repaying their student loans.
The DOE adds that it is working on the loan repayment provisions of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” Act, which created a new Income-Driven Repayment plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP), that will be available to borrowers by July 1, 2026.
How many people in Ohio have student loan debt?
Numbers from the Education Data Initiative show that there are about 1.7 million student loan borrowers in Ohio, carrying over $60 billion in debt. The average student loan debt is approximately $35,072.
Ohio also ranks No. 10 among the states with the most student debt, according to personal finance site WalletHub.
How much money does Ohio get from the Department of Education?
The DOE budget for Ohio for fiscal year 2025 is estimated to be more than $5.65 billion, The Columbus Dispatch previously reported.
President Trump announced his intentions to eliminate the Department of Education earlier this year, meaning that Ohio could lose more than $5 billion in annual funding.
An employee of a Papa Johns restaurant in Cincinnati, Ohio, is accused of shooting and killing a man inside the store on Tuesday night.
Police in Cincinnati said Murphy Tilk, 21, fatally shot 23-year-old Nawaf Althawadi inside the West Price Hill restaurant around 11 p.m., CBS affiliate WKRC reported. When first responders arrived at the restaurant on West Eighth Street, they performed life-saving measures on Althawadi, who died at the scene. Officials said the 21-year-old Tilk, who was taken into custody without incident and charged, is a Papa Johns employee, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Tilk booked into the Hamilton County Justice Center on a first-degree murder charge, the center’s records show. During Tilk’s initial court appearance on Wednesday, he was held without bond. The 21-year-old man has a bond hearing set for Saturday.
Law enforcement has not said what led up to the shooting or if Tilk and Althawadi knew each other. Police are investigating the shooting.
KDKA reached out to Papa Johns on Wednesday evening for comment, but has not heard back.
Papa Johns is a pizza chain with 6,000 locations globally, according to its website. It has 15 locations in Cincinnati.
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